Fight the Flights the residents group which campaigns against the expansion of London City Airport, were shocked to find out from the Leader of Greenwich Council, Councillor Chris Roberts, that the council have failed to submit a response to the London City Airport Draft Noise Action Plan. The consultation period ran from Friday 25 September until 15 January - 16 weeks in total.
The European Noise Directive requires London City airport to produce a noise action plan. This is intended to help protect communities from harmful environmental noise by preventing or reducing noise levels.
Greenwich Council who voted to support a 50% expansion of flights at London City Airport currently estimate that around 3000 properties are already affected by excessive aircraft noise in the Greenwich London City Airport noise contour. An additional 2000 properties are predicted to be in the noise contour when Tripcock Point in the far east of the borough is developed and more properties will be affected if the planned 120,000 flights per year goes ahead.
A spokesperson for Fight the Flights, commented: “we are very disappointed with Greenwich Councils failure to respond to the draft noise action plan as it offered a good opportunity to make sure that residents under the flight paths quality of life were not further eroded. It’s a missed opportunity and only residents will suffer as a result”.
Local resident Barry Griffin said that “This was a great opportunity for Greenwich to put residents best interests first after making such a poor decision to support flight expansion at the airport. We’ve already seen a further deterioration in our quality of life in Greenwich . They have let down 1000s of residents who already suffer from excessive noise levels from London City Airport ”.
ENDS.
Notes:
1. London City Airport Draft Noise Action Plan: http://www.lcy.co.uk/downloads/LCY%20Action%20Plan%20%20Main%20Document%20-%20Website.pdf
2. The Environmental Noise Directive 2002/49/EX )END) states (Article 1, Objectives) ‘ ‘The aim of the directive shall be to define a common approach intended to avoid, prevent or reduce on a prioritised basis the harmful effects, including annoyance, due to the exposure of environmental noise’
3. London City Airport were given permission to expand flights by Newham Council from 76,000 to 120,000 per year.
4.FTF launched a legal challenge in September 2009 to Newhams decision to grant approval to flight expansion. There are three aspects to Fight the Flights claim. In summary they are (1) that Newham failed to have regard to the Government’s policy on climate change and aviation; (2) that Newham failed to consult relevant neighbouring local authorities; and (3) Newham failed to consult the residents of those boroughs. A copy of the legal grounds are available on our website at http://fighttheflights.com/. FTF founded in 2007, is a non party political residents group covering all areas affected by London City Airport operations.
5.FTF works with not only the community and NGO‘s, but lobby’s decision makers.
Fightthefights.com
Contacts:
FTF Spokesperson: 07984 300558
