New Government Funded Study Shows Significant Effect of London City Airport on Noise Levels

A government funded, pioneering new way to measure environmental noise has shown the excessive noise levels that London City Airport brings to the Royal Docks.

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL), a world-leading centre of excellence in developing and applying the most accurate measurement standards, science and technology has just completed a case study on Greater London Authority owned land in Silvertown.

The case study, not solely focused on London City Airport but looking at all sources of noise in the area, involved using a new measurement based approach using multiple prototype noise sensors situated across the piece of land with a system called Dreamsys. The system has been proven to be accurate during the case studies and is expected to offer a more representative noise measuring method to work alongside predictive noise mapping currently used for environmental noise measuring. This system will also be financially more accessible and a unit is expected to cost no more than a high end mobile phone.

The data collected was used to create noise mapping and illuminating graphs indicating noise levels at particular locations on the site, and also consider different environmental noise factors. The noise data collected was then compared to the predictive noise maps (the technique already used, but felt widely to be insufficient in displaying the actual impact of noise on communities and fails to take into account accumulative noise effects). It was found that the new noise levels measured in the case study and compared to the predictive noise maps created by Hoare Lee were most similar at the nearest locations to the airport runway, however as you moved away the predictive noise maps became less accurate in representing the noise actually measured on the site. This can be seen here on the map points.

Of particular significance is the data collected during the volcanic ash flight ban last April. The MEMs DREAMSys units stationed on the Silvertown site measured a notable change in daily noise level - a 10dblaeq reduction. This translates as a 10db average reduction in noise levels.

NPL Dreamsys commented: "Lasting for just over 5 days for London airports, the grounding of flights was widely observed through the quieter skies and the absence of vapour trails, bringing discussion into the public domain on the usually unnoticed effects of air traffic".

This drop in noise level reflects measurement levels taken by FTF and local residents during the same period with the help of University College London's Mapping for Change enterprise and uploaded onto the Royal Docks Map. Richmond Council in West London also recorded a 10db drop in noise levels during the same period. Overall noise levels around London City Airport were also found to be comparable to levels under the flight path in Kew,West London based on a HACAN commissioned study carried out by Bureau Veritas.

The NPL Dreamsys data, is all available to view on user friendly maps which you can command to show you noise levels and the times of the noise here.

Dr Richard Barham, Principal Research Scientist in NPL's Acoustic Group commented:

"DREAMSys greatly expands the coverage offered by the measurement system in conventional equipment. It enables a large number of measurement points to be installed and used to continually monitor an area for months or even years. However, it is not intended that DREAMSys replaces prediction entirely. We hope that both approaches will complement each other, with the measurements being made in areas carefully selected on the basis that action plans would be significantly enhanced as a result. This shows the essential role that cutting edge measurement science can have in helping to meet specific challenges."

But overall the results of the NPL Dreamsys Silvertown case study offer many other illuminating facts from the real data collected:

1. London City Airport contributes excessive noise levels to East London and the peaks and troughs of each day perfectly reflect the times at which most residents express they are most disturbed by aircraft noise.

2. The issue of accumulative noise is raised - particularly road traffic and the DLR on the site. Not only did residents notice a huge decrease in aviation noise during the flight ban, but they also noticed a huge decrease in road traffic. London City Airport attracts huge amounts of road traffic with it's noise and air pollution, just under half of it's passengers arrive by private car or taxi. This makes a huge contribution to noise and pollution levels in Newham and the surrounding boroughs. FTF and HACAN have been actively lobbying for accumulative noise mapping.

Allowing airports to expand is not just about what happens within the terminal or on the runway - it has far reaching impacts across a very wide area. Accumulative noise impacts of aircraft with extra traffic, alongside pre-existing businesses should be always be part of any environmental consideration in planning. It suits aviation in general and London City Airport in particular to continue to ignore the impact of their business activities over the wider area, hence the keenness on the aviation industry on the current noise measurement methods they employ which fail miserably to represent what residents hear and what communities actually experience.

FTF welcomes the NPL's case study results at Silvertown and is excited at the prospect of Dreamsys being adopted more widely by local and central government but also the system being more affordable and accessible to many organisations and groups affected by excessive noise levels. Essentially, this system could offer government a better, more effective way to meet the EU noise directives, allow scrutiny and to promote better noise mitigation and management. It is a positive development and we hope it will be embraced. This should in turn influence planning decisions, and environmental and health impact studies as the effects of accumulative noise effects on communities has sadly been overlooked for too long. The cost of excessive noise levels on human health and develpment is something that needs to be looked at more closely, but an essential part of any such work needs to be supported by accurate and representative noise measurements to see localised cause and effect.  

More press coverage can be found here, here and here.

It's really not about polar bears any more...

Unless it's got a brand name attached to it the only other way to get a message across to the public is to shock them. Not the easiest to watch but you get the message.

From the ever insightful and intelligent Plane Stupid Team.

London City Airport Gets a Makeover from Plane Stupid

Well it seems that the voices of opposition to the expansion at London City Airport continue to grow...but we'll let the airport continue to tell the press that there ''is no local vocal opposition'' if it makes them feel better!

We don't need to tell our regular readers about the level of opposition to expansion in the communities whom are affected across east and south east London, so instead we will refer you to the blog of Anna on Plane Stupid about how PS feel about the expansion of London City Airport.

Whether you agree with direct action groups such as PS or not, they raise many good points about the environment AND the community in regards to LCY's expansion and you can read them here.

Climate isn't a dirty word, but carbon is, and LCA will pay to dump more over your homes

Residents affected by London City Airports contribution to pollution and who care about the quality of air they breathe, their health and the environment take note:

Taken from the Climate Rush website:

"Normal people really can change the world. 100 years ago the Suffragettes went to Parliament and demanded that their society change. They held a mass rally outside Parliament to which thousands came, before a number of them rushed into Parliament and got everyone's attention. We invite you all to celebrate the 100th anniversary of this world changing event. We invite you to celebrate when women got radical. Enjoy a rally and speeches in Parliament Square. Enjoy social change."

THE PLAN
"Come to Parliament Square at 5.30pm on Monday 13th October. Dress in white or wear period costume. One of our stewards will give you the Climate Rush sash. A range of inspirational women have agreed to speak: Rosie Boycott, Caroline Lucas (MEP and leader of the Green Party), Joy Greasley (Vice-Chair of the Women's Institute), Sam Roddick, Baroness Tonge and more...

It's not just a 'rush' for women. Check the website for more details.

It's Simply a Rule of Thumb and, Do 406 Employees Make LCA a Major Employer in Newham?

Yet more evidence on just how much deception and collusion is going on between the aviation industry and government.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4364216.ece

It is no surprise for those residents in East and South East London who are affected by London City Airport operations and whom are concerned at the possiblity of further flight expansion. They've been finding out lots of dirty secrets over the past 9 months.

Compare the Times article with:

1. London City Airport failed to take any accurate noise readings of it's departing aircraft for 7 years - despite the amount of planes being allowed to operate being based on a noise factored movement.

2.This means that London City Airport could have been allowing more noise factored movements than permitted in the Section 106 agreement.

3. Noise levels from individual craft at London City Airport could have exceeded beyond those set out in the Section 106 agreement to the detriment of the health and well being of local residents. This means that there are no accurate noise readings or noise contour maps for the whole of the areas around the airport. No evidence is available to ensure that the airport has/is not exceeding the agreed noise limits or that homes have received the noise mitigation that they are entitled to.

4. LB Newham have failed to take any action in 7 years which ensured that London City Airport carried out regular and reliable noise data collection.

5. London City Airport, in its current application, has based it's case for flight expansion on estimated, unreliable noise and environmental data - purely because their methods of monitoring on site have failed consistently due to a lack of their committment to the requirements of the last planning application. Spot any parallels with the Heathrow Consultation debacle?

6. It appears that The Department for Transport has happily accepted 'estimated' noise data from London City Airport for 6 years as part of the EU directive requirement for all airports to provide annual data on noise contours. Did they never question why it was estimated, and not real, and the reason behind this, not even once?

7. Stephen Timms, MP for Newham supports expansion on the basis of adequate environmental measures and noise mitigation being implemented. He has failed to ensure that the environmental and noise measurements have been carried out, in his borough, for 7 years, where has he been? He has clearly not raised this as a concern with the LB of Newham, nor with the airport and continues to neglect to mention this in his articles. What confidence can residents have in him in ensuring the airport will meet future obligations, if they have failed consistently in the past, with no challenge from the authorities?

8. Job Growth - lies, lies and more lies. We all know that the job figures from London City Airport are a closely guarded secret, particularly the amount of Newham residents who are employed. Why? Because the figures are not as LCA promote, sorry, spin, them to be, and they are not flattering to them at all. It's something about 'burying bad news'.

Insiders inform us that they are not at all happy with what they feel is the ''purposeful deception of the community into the belief that there has been or will be so many extra jobs at London City Airport'' . The LB Newham is supposed to collect annual job data from LCA - it appears that this had not occured if we are to take the word of LCA's Richard Gooding in a letter to Stephen Timms MP.

In addition Stephen Timms claims that the airport has "created 2000 jobs". What he doesn't tell you is how he calculated this figure - we believe he has added on the jobs in the local hotels and other neighbouring businesses (courtesy of the information being passed over from the LCA spin machine no doubt), even cab drivers- but how could he possibly isolate all these jobs outside of the airport as a direct result of the airport activities - and not the Excel Centre, or tourists looking for the best value hotel room in London?

LCA customer profiles indicate that the majority of their users earn on average over £86,000 per annum. It seems more likely that they perhaps would consider the Four Seasons Hotel in Docklands, or one of an equal standard in zone 1, over the lower star chains stituated by the airport, which suffer from up to 87db noise levels in the areas around them.

In fact the airport directly employs just 406 employees - as stated in a letter to Stephen Timms MP. The airport could not indicate how many of those 406 staff were part time.

Apparently, according to Stephen, the employment of 406 staff, none of whom could be identified as Newham residents by LCA at the time that the letter was written, nor of how many are part time makes LCA a 'major employer' in Newham. How's that? We think he is getting confused with THE major employer - Newham Council or perhaps Tate and Lyle?

The airport therefore does not employ 2000 people directly - and the use of the sentence 'created 2000 jobs' by Stephen Timms does nothing more than purposely continue to mislead the communities into reading that 2000 LCA jobs have been created - which they have not. Still, perhaps he is just following the precedent set by the Heathrow example.

It all smacks of collusion, maladministration and a purposeful deception of the communities for the purpose of big business getting its way, at any cost.

Residents have been let down and misled - it's time to make all these individuals accountable. Expansion cannot be based on estimates of noise and pollution, and the shocking lack of committment of the airport and the local council to ensure that conditions are met can only lead the majority to have a vote of 'no confidence' in them.

When most people do a bad job, fail to meet targets, requirements etc they usually get penalised for that - that's of course only if they haven't made lots of money for big business by failing to adminster the requirements. The making of money, and of looking after one's own career, of course supercedes all the other failures.

Credit Suisse Values At Odds with London City Airport's?? or Question 1. Why would someone object to LCA expansion when we give them free food?

Credit Suisse is a major share holder in London City Airport, we thought you might be interested in their corporate responsibility statement:

Credit Suisse Group knows that the assumption of its responsibilities vis-à-vis its various stakeholders, as well as society and the environment, is one of the keys to long-term business success.

Commitment to Sustainability
We strive to take account of environmental and social issues in our business activities. The signing of international environmental and sustainability charters underscores our commitment.

Society
We cultivate an open dialog with the public, support humanitarian, cultural and charitable organizations and provide sponsorship in the fields of sports and culture.






Pictured left - River Thames - Gallions Reach - an area rich in wildlife and at the end of the east bound LCA runway.


Environment
We have pledged to take account of environmental issues in our business activities and to continuously improve our environmental performance.

That all sounds good....We find it interesting that the good values that Credit Suisse are committed to (and we commend those) are pretty absent from London City Airport's management of the consultation and in the application itself. Concern for the environment, health, pollution - no....not too much evidence of that at all. LCA are hardly doing a good job of even trying to uphold the good values that it's shareholder prescribes to.

Fight the Flights has been wondering recently just how much Credit Suisse knows about the methods which LCA use in their quest to bury the bad news to the local communities not only in Newham but beyond. They might get a good idea of some of the issues just from this blog.

Of course LCA will try and tell you that their 1/2 kilometer consultation, limited to Newham only, is representative and was 'extensive'. Funny how they didn't bother telling residents who would be in the new PSZ map area...or in the new, all encompassing and enlargened noise contour map if the application is approved.

It's all been about as representative as the appalling questionnaire they put together as part of the application which contained 'leading' questions which do not allow any negative answers to be given, only positive - so sorry to those residents who thought they'd get to express anything other than what LCA wanted to hear that day you partook in the questionnaire. Any professional researcher would identify this as being 'biased' and therefore not good practice and invalid. Such questionnaires lead researchers to question the validity and the motive of such a design.

We just call it coercive spin that cheats communities of a real voice.

Egg sandwich anyone?