Flights or quiet nights question faces flight path residents

9:20am Thursday 5th July 2012 in News By Paul Teed

Got your number: Campaigners oppose Heathrow expansion Got your number: Campaigners oppose Heathrow expansion

Would you trade an extra hour of sleep for more morning flights overhead?

That is the question people living under the flightpath will be asked as part of consultations taking place later this year.

Those woken by the 16 planes that can currently land between 4.30am and 6am will have the opportunity to call for the first arrivals to be pushed back to 5.30am.

BAA will test the impact of altering morning flight times in November, as part of the second phase of Heathrow’s operational freedom trials, and the Government is due to begin consulting later this year on night flying arrangements between 2014 and 2019.

Lord True, leader of Richmond Council, said: “Sleep loss is a serious issue for our residents living under the flight paths. They will welcome any moves to quieten more of the night, however small the gains might be, without losing sight of the need for a longer night’s sleep for all.

“I support this move to explore how people will feel about moving flights to after 5.30am.”

The council said it would closely scrutinise the second phase of Heathrow’s controversial trials, which started this week and allow it to use both its runways simultaneously when it has a backlog.

The authority encouraged residents to report any changes in noise levels on its website.

Campaigners from the Hacan Clearskies group staged a colourful stunt in Richmond Green on Sunday, July 1, to highlight the start of the nine month trial.

Ten activists dressed as judges were surrounded by people holding up the number residents can call to make a complaint.

John Stewart, chairman of Hacan Clearskies, said: “Residents are worried by this trial by noise. Although the overall number of planes using Heathrow each day will not increase, they are losing their much-valued respite period.”

Councillor Virginia Morris, strategic cabinet member for environment at Richmond Council, said: “It is important that we monitor this trial as it might affect many people in the borough.”

Councillor Stephen Knight, leader of Richmond’s Liberal Democrat group, claimed senior Liberal Democrats in the Government were blocking calls for mixed-mode, which would allow Heathrow to use both runways all day for both take-offs and landings.

He said: “Talking to Vince [Cable], it is clear the leadership of the Conservative party would like to re-open Heathrow expansion as an issue.”

To report changes in noise levels to the council, visit richmond.gov.uk/aircraft_noise or call 020 8891 7979.

Comments(18)

twickersargyle says...
11:16am Thu 5 Jul 12

The fact that thousands of people lose sleep because of Heathrow, despite living seven miles away, is such a damning indictment of an airport that is in totally the wrong place.

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nickdd says...
11:27am Thu 5 Jul 12

I'm not sure we are actually being offered a delay in the first landing to 5.30am. What I read from the Heathrow site was that if landings don't take place between 4.30am and 5am (due to one of the 16 arrivals being delayed or stacked) then Heathrow will have the right to land a plane at 5.30am that was previously not allowed to land until 6am. This will lead to an increase in the number of landings prior to 6am. The reason we have these ridiculous 4.30am landings is due to the take off times from airports in Asia - this is the real problem that needs to be addressed and I don't believe that forms any part of the proposal. Whether it is one flight landing at 4.30am or ten flights is somewhat irrelevant - it is the first one that wakes you up !

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helen59 says...
11:37am Thu 5 Jul 12

how many of you knew there was an airport there when you moved to the area ?

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twickersargyle says...
11:54am Thu 5 Jul 12

helen59 wrote:
how many of you knew there was an airport there when you moved to the area ?
Don't wheel out that old chestnut, Helen. Heathrow was built after the war and, at the time, there were just a few flights a day, so it didn't cause many problems. As a result, people happily built houses and moved into them everywhere from Hounslow to Chiswick and beyond. Since then, the number of flights has increased exponentially—to one every 90 seconds. As a plane takes a good 30 seconds to fly over—by which time the next one's almost arrived—that means near-constant noise. The number of planes has increased a huge amount since even just the 1980s. So, no, a lot of people didn't know about living such a ridiculously busy airport when they moved in, because, at the time, it wasn't.

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RiverLover says...
1:15pm Thu 5 Jul 12

Twickersargyle - not quite true...in the late 60's and 70's the traffic to Heathrow was still alot - no regional airports nor other London airports. Also the noise was far greater...especially the VC 10.

Today believe it or not the jets are far quieter and the the A380 really is very quiet taking account of its size.

Helen's point is valid. For me though as I am interested in aviation being near the main flight path to Heathrow is not too great an ordeal...and handy for Heathrow when I am travelling.

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twickersargyle says...
2:12pm Thu 5 Jul 12

RiverLover wrote:
Twickersargyle - not quite true...in the late 60's and 70's the traffic to Heathrow was still alot - no regional airports nor other London airports. Also the noise was far greater...especially the VC 10.

Today believe it or not the jets are far quieter and the the A380 really is very quiet taking account of its size.

Helen's point is valid. For me though as I am interested in aviation being near the main flight path to Heathrow is not too great an ordeal...and handy for Heathrow when I am travelling.
Not sure where you're getting your figures from, RiverLover. In 1986, Heathrow had 315,000 aircraft movements. In 2011, it was 480,000—a >50% increase. The number of passengers in 2011 was 69 million. In 1951, that figure was under 800,000 and, by the late 70s, it was still only 27 million passengers a year.

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RiverLover says...
3:04pm Thu 5 Jul 12

twickersargyle wrote:
RiverLover wrote:
Twickersargyle - not quite true...in the late 60's and 70's the traffic to Heathrow was still alot - no regional airports nor other London airports. Also the noise was far greater...especially the VC 10.

Today believe it or not the jets are far quieter and the the A380 really is very quiet taking account of its size.

Helen's point is valid. For me though as I am interested in aviation being near the main flight path to Heathrow is not too great an ordeal...and handy for Heathrow when I am travelling.
Not sure where you're getting your figures from, RiverLover. In 1986, Heathrow had 315,000 aircraft movements. In 2011, it was 480,000—a >50% increase. The number of passengers in 2011 was 69 million. In 1951, that figure was under 800,000 and, by the late 70s, it was still only 27 million passengers a year.
I did not quote any figures...only that Heathrow has always been busy. Thus Helen's point is valid - and I added aircraft are quieter today.

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twickersargyle says...
4:58pm Thu 5 Jul 12

Fair enough, you didn't quote any figures. I should have said "impression". The point is that the airport is much noisier (overall) and busier than it was when large tracts of the current population moved in. It's now (supposedly) nearing capacity and a third runway would put tens of thousands of new people under a new flightpath, so it's time we looked for a new hub airport somewhere else.

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Twickenham Bob says...
9:51pm Thu 5 Jul 12

A good nights sleep is vital for good health. We need a proper study done on the costs of aviation noise induced ill health.

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aspicer says...
8:58am Fri 6 Jul 12

i think we need to consider night-shift workers who need to sleep during the day, and not allow landings between 6am to midnight.

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twickersargyle says...
9:14am Fri 6 Jul 12

aspicer wrote:
i think we need to consider night-shift workers who need to sleep during the day, and not allow landings between 6am to midnight.
Very good idea. Or how about an airport that doesn't send planes over millions of homes every 90 seconds?

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jeremyhm says...
10:03am Sat 7 Jul 12

I've lived here for more than 30 years; Concorde used to take off directly over the house, so I know something about aircraft noise. I regard it as part of the weft and warp of the district, in the same way that crowing **** and ringing church bells are in the countryside.
(PS - I am NOT deaf!)

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twickersargyle says...
12:00pm Sat 7 Jul 12

I grew up in the countryside. Trust me, there's no comparison between church bells and the Heathrow flight path. I suspect a few people on here are keen not to make a fuss, in case it stuffs up house prices. Just a suspicion, though.

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jeremyhm says...
12:35pm Sat 7 Jul 12

just for the record, the word in my earlier post that was turned into asterisks was in fact the term for a male chicken!

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Copthall resident says...
12:50pm Sat 7 Jul 12

Actually Nickdd just two of the Hong Kong and Singapore flights are scheduled to arrive before 5.30, the rest of the night flights are scheduled to arrive after with the last one leaving HK at 00.35 scheduled to arrive after 6. However they almost always arrive ahead of schedule, and the pilots always seem keen to depart ahead of schedule as well, and land well before 5.30. I'm sure not many of the passengers are thrilled to find themselves disembarked at Heathrow in the middle of the night, before anyone except those living under the flight path are awake! So I am guessing it is operational considerations that prevail.

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kingstonpaul says...
1:53pm Tue 10 Jul 12

What I always find interesting about affluent Richmond folks crowing over aircraft noise is that their access to overeas travel and trade has been a major factor in their wealth creation.
It is grotesquely unfair that you should object to suffering the dis-benefits (i.e. noise, pollution) of the resources you consume in order to generate wealth, and which bring economic benefit to the wider community.

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twickersargyle says...
3:42pm Tue 10 Jul 12

kingstonpaul wrote:
What I always find interesting about affluent Richmond folks crowing over aircraft noise is that their access to overeas travel and trade has been a major factor in their wealth creation.
It is grotesquely unfair that you should object to suffering the dis-benefits (i.e. noise, pollution) of the resources you consume in order to generate wealth, and which bring economic benefit to the wider community.
Yep, Paul. We're all constantly on planes, us Richmond lot. All rich as Croesus. I'm actually struggling to type this, because of all the jewellery on my hands.

Ignoring the stereotype, though, yes, we've all used planes, but that doesn't mean we can't object to an airport being in completely the wrong place. If that daft Spellthorne Tory gets his way, there'll be a fourth-runway flight path over north Kingston. You might change your tune then (if you can hear it).

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kingstonpaul says...
4:30pm Wed 11 Jul 12

Thanks Croesus.

I was actually making a serious economic point about the distribution of the dis-benefits (horrible phrase I agree) created by economic activity.
Sorry if you feel I was pandering to stereotyopes, but the fact is that Richmond Borough has the highest per capita income in London after Kensington & Chelsea. We would all have to conclude that Richmond residents have therefore had dispropotionately more access to the scarce resources that are used in the creation of that wealth. And one of those resources is air travel.

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