Resident WWRA aviation experts Mike Sullivan and John Holdstock provide an update on the continued lack of aircraft noise reduction efforts by Heathrow Airport Limited.
we believe our Council should approach the Civil Aviation Authority to address the totally unjustified delay to implement a clearly stated Government objective
In January 2009, the then Labour Government abolished the Cranford Agreement which had for more than 50 years prevented easterly departures from Heathrow using the Northern Runway. That decision was subsequently reaffirmed by the Coalition Government in 2010 with the express purpose of allowing an even distribution of aircraft movements around Heathrow.
To allow this to happen would require an acceptable process to mitigate the increased disturbance of those adversely affected by the changes and the construction of small taxiways and hard standings to facilitate the amended utilisation of the runways. British Airport Authority estimated they would submit a planning application by Spring 2011 and anticipated work would be completed by Summer 2013. In fact no planning application was submitted until May 2013.
Heathrow are required to publish a Noise Action Plan and at that the time the plan implied that full runway alternation could be commenced by the end of 2015. As most people anticipated, the planning application was rejected by Hillingdon BC and their decision was appealed by Heathrow Airport Ltd (HAL). After an inexplicably long delay the Appeal inspector determined the appeal in favour of HAL. By this time the Heathrow Noise Action Plan indicated that the work could be completed by the end of 2018.
Now HAL want to delay the work and submit a new application at a later date with a view to not completing the work until 2023, i.e. 15 years after the original decision was made. This would mean that apart from delaying the implementation of full runway alteration, if the third runway finally gets planning approval, easterly take offs and landings will never get the scheduled eight hour relief period that has been so valued for westerly operations. It is not possible to schedule that level of relief with three runways in operation.
Our “Good Neighbour” HAL claim that a third runway at Heathrow could be operational by 2026 (9 years from now), yet they need 15 years to construct a few short taxiways and hard standings. Questions need to be asked, is it due to incompetence, cynicism or are they simply being devious? Whichever it is, we believe our Council should approach the Civil Aviation Authority to address the totally unjustified delay to implement a clearly stated Government objective. Those who wish to protest these delays should consider lobbying their M.P.s.