CAA To Allow Night Flights At London Airports For Olympics

The CAA look set to lift night flying restrictions at all London Airports during the Olympic Games adding further to the misery of the growing aviation noise pollution across London.

In an article in today's Evening Standard, John Stewart ,from our alliance partner campaign group HACAN commented:

Anti-airport expansion campaign group HACAN denounced the measures. Chairman John Stewart said: “These revelations are shocking. Londoners could be bombarded by aircraft noise day and night.

“There would be a big incentive to introduce night flights at London City airport in particular as it's so near Stratford. There are so many people living near there it would be horrific.
“The airspace above London would become absolutely chocka when it is already the busiest in Europe. It would be a relentless noise nightmare. Londoners would never get any sleep.”

Mr Stewart added that the industry could push to keep any new air routes after the Olympics.

A CAA spokesman said: “We are putting forward all possible ideas. This is blue sky thinking. None of this is final.” The Department for Transport said no firm decisions had been made.

So no denial from the CAA then.

If recent behaviour is anything to go by from the CAA and DfT they will simply try to push this through the back door without bothering to tell those who will be most affected. Why? Because the CAA and all those involved know that there is an ever increasing amount of residents all over London who are just about sick and tired of their crass and irresponsible decisions that effect Londoners health and welfare. So clearly new tactics are in order at the CAA - push the changes through the back door and keep it quiet.

We have a feeling of deja vu. Isn't pushing it through the back door exactly what happened over the changes to amounts of flights on any one day, and the subsequent application to expand flights by 50% at LCY by the respective authorities? In doubt and fearful of huge amounts of objections? Well try and push it in through the back door, purposely confuse residents with weasel words and perhaps nobody will notice! What it does show is the utter contempt that is shown for the communities most affected by themselves and the industry they regulate.

The CAA have only just recently cheated the residents who are most affected by London City Airport flight paths the right to a full and fair consultation on flight path changes. NATS told residents that the consultation was to be delayed for the TCN proposals at London City Airport however the CAA went ahead and signed off the changes to the LCY flight paths behind residents backs. Residents were only made aware after suddenly being plagued by LCY aircraft noise for the first time and a subsequent barrage of complaints being made. FTF have submitted a formal complaint regarding the issue and are awaiting a response from the CAA.

Residents will not sit back on this issue and the government, CAA and DfT should expect huge and very visible opposition on any proposal to lift night flying restrictions for the duration of the Olympic Games.

A Residents Report - The State of London's Environment: Ignored by "The Money"

Last Saturday I spent the day at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre for The State of London Debate - arranged by the Mayor of London to increase the accountability of the GLA to Londoners.

On the whole I was impressed with the speakers, with the exception of Jo Valentine of London First and Stuart Fraser, Economic Development London Councils, who did not impress me at all. What struck me was their rather out of date attitude vis-a-vis the current problems of aviation noise and pollution in London. It seems they have an over-arching aim to make London the best city in the world in which to live, work and invest. Well obviously they have not cast their eyes over recent statistics with regard to air pollution in London; which is clearly not one of the best places to live because it is now known as the dirtiest, noisiest and most polluted capital in Europe.

In fact London's dirty air is responsible for the deaths of over 3,000 people a year. London's emissions are well above those that have been set by the EU and the United Kingdom is about to be fined.

I was disappointed that not only did neither Jo Valentine nor Stuart Fraser seem to grasp the serious challenges that London is facing with regard to the air and noise pollution suffered by millions, they showed no evidence of understanding that London needs innovative approaches and practical solutions to the problem. In fact they both reminded me of uninformed and not very creative dinosaurs.

In addition, the reply that Jo Valentine made with regard to a question on litter was actually quite disturbing. She stressed that it was very important indeed to clear up the areas of London that visitors would pass through during the Olympic Games. However, the other areas seen by and lived in by Londoners on a daily basis were not mentioned by her at all. Presumably, since only local people would see them they were not nearly as important and any litter and mess could be safely ignored.

Therefore I would hazard a guess that Jo Valentine is not a community person.

Seachanges

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FTF comment:

Fraser and Valentine are both from banking backgrounds and clearly put profit before people. Valentine of London First (otherwise known as Money First), has been a long time supporter of London City Airports growth and appears not to be concerned about the negative effects of such business expansion on residential communities at all.

These individuals are clearly not concerned at the flawed and missing data that the airport has provided over the years, nor has Valentine acknowledged that the airport has failed to meet even 50% of it's most conservative prediction of the amount of jobs it would create in the last 10 years.

Valentine thinks that LCA is good for Newham: just 120 directly employed jobs have been given to Newham residents in over 20 years of the airport running. This is compared with an ever increasing amount of residents in east and south east London being affected by the 57DB+ noise contour. Upon any expansion almost 100,000 residents will be affected by these excessive noise levels.

Will Fraser and Valentine be two of those residents we wonder? If they were, would they still choose to ignore the social, over the profit? Lets hope their children don't have to sit in a class room that is disturbed by a flight roaring over every 90 seconds, and their development being affected, lets hope also that they don't have to deal with the illnesses associated with excessive aviation noise and pollution levels.

Newham residents haven't gained much at all from this airport that has been allowed to grow beyond the limits promised faithfully to the communities of East London: Newham is still one of the most socially deprived boroughs in the country, and tops a lot of other 'negative' categories in healthcare and childrens educational development. It also has one of the worst housing shortages in the country.

So obviously 20 years is not enough for the airport to have shown the 'trickle down' effect - so businesses answer is? To expand more, to socially experiment more, on one of the poorest boroughs in London. And lets not forget that this 'experiment' cost London taxpayers £24million pounds over the past 5 years.