PRESS RELEASE: The Two Faces of Boris

For immediate use

At the public hearing into the London Plan last Friday (1) held at City Hall it became clear that the Mayor, Boris Johnston, is adopting a very different approach to expansion at each of London’s airports. He has backed the Government in ruling out any further expansion at Heathrow but is supporting plans for a 50% increase in flight numbers at City Airport.

At Friday’s hearing the Mayor’s office made it clear that he supports Newham Council’s bid for expansion at City Airport (2).

Fight the Flights (3) spokesman Alan Haughton, who gave evidence at the public hearing, said “It is not at all clear why the Mayor is adopting such a contradictory attitude. There is no hard evidence that a 50% in flights at City Airport will do anything to boost the local economy. What we do know is that it will bring yet more noise and air pollution to one of the most deprived areas of London.”

The Mayor has made is clear that he would not support any further increase in flights beyond 50%. But Haughton commented: “Boris has come up with no good reason why expansion can’t just stop now.”

ENDS

Notes for Editors:

(1). The Mayor is required to produce the London Plan by the Government. At present public hearings are taking place into what policies the Mayor should adopt in the Plan. The Plan, once published, will cover a 20 year period. On Friday 10th the hearing considered the whole question of aviation policy.
(2). Newham Council, the planning authority, have given permission for a 50% increase in flight numbers at the airport but Fight the Flights have been granted permission to challenge the decision in the High Court by means of a Judicial Review. The Judicial Review hearing will take place on 18th and 19th November.

(3). Fight the Flights is a residents community group, non party political and anti expansion, not anti aviation.

Web:http://www.fighttheflights.com/  

Blog: http://londoncityairportfighttheflights.blogspot.com/


For further information:

Fight the Flights spokesperson: 07984 300558 


Press Release dated: 13/9/10

The GLA want your feedback on how London City Airport Affects You

Are the extra flights at London City Airport affecting you? The Environment Committee is investigating the environmental impacts of expansion at the airport and wants to hear from you.

The investigation will look at environmental impacts like noise, emissions and air quality, and whether the current environmental safeguards and controls are adequate. The Committee is keen to hear how the extra flights are impacting on local people.

A public meeting will be held at City Hall on 10th June 2010 when the Committee hopes to hear people’s views on the expansion of the airport and the environmental controls currently in place. In the meantime, please complete our survey below.

In July 2009 Newham Council gave permission to increase the number of flights from 91,000 to 120,000 per year. Expansion was made conditional on tougher environmental controls for air quality and noise levels, which were to be monitored by borough staff. Residents across Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Greenwich, Hackney, Havering, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest are likely to be affected by an increase in flights.

Tell us your views

Please tell us your views by completing our short survey.

Alternatively you can email your views to David Bellman atdavid.bellman@london.gov.uk.

TODAY! Let's give some noise back to London City Airport

Protest against more flights at London City Airport

Tuesday September 29th at 11:50am

London City Airport introduces a new business-only service from London to New York.

A return ticket costs over £3,000. So, that's luxury for a few rich passengers - and more noise pollution for everyone living under the flight path.

By 2030, London City Airport aims to add another 90,000 flights each year to its timetable, including bigger, noisier, jets. How much more do they expect us to take?

The borough of Newham is already suffering from severe air pollution problems (Newham has higher than average asthma and infant death rates for the UK). A huge increase in flights will make our community even more vulnerable.

If the airport is going to make a load of noise, so are we.

On the morning of the first London-New York flight, a group of local people will be gathering outside the entrance to show the airport what it's like to be disturbed by unwanted noise. We're bringing pots and pans, trumpets,whistles, horns.anything that makes a racket. We'll also be wearing a selection of colourful masks to give the protest, a positive, carnival feel.

Come and join us! 11:50am outside the airport entrance.

LCYs New Flight Path 'Surprise' Erodes Leyton and Wanstead's Peace

For some months now we have been getting a steady stream of emails from residents in the Leyton and Wanstead areas. All the residents emailing have been saying the same: that whilst not having been affected by aircraft noise in the past, they suddenly found themselves to be in the past few months.

Why? Well most of the residents know something has changed just by the noise and the sight of London City Airport flights crawling over their rooftops. But in so far as the residents being told what has happened, and why things have/or were to change - the vast majority were told nothing.

To help explain we need to turn the clock back to last summer.

Last year the government asked the aviation industries National Air Traffic Systems (NATS work out the flight paths and form air traffic control) to look at making some changes to flight paths. It wasn't a favour of course, money was exchanged for the service.

London and the south east are identified by NATS as Terminal Control North (TCN). TCN is one of the most complex and busiest airspaces in the UK, and probably Europe. Put this into context with a government that can't get enough flights into the sky, and the aviation industry who want the same and suddenly a plan is needed as to how all these extra flights could be fitted into our already overcrowded skies.

So NATS launched a consultation last year, though not many people knew about it, especially those that might be affected by the changes proposed. NATS placed a few consultation packs in local libraries at a time when libraries appear to be in terminal decline, and online. By some sheer accident NATS did receive some feedback on the proposals: and the feedback was so negative that NATS made the following statement:

"In February 23 2009 NATS announced that it is to conduct a new consultation on revised proposals for the TCN region".

Within those original proposals was a set for the change of flight paths for London City Airport. Because London City Airport is now using more and more larger planes, mostly jets, whilst propeller plane use is reduced the Civil Aviation Authority told us that flight path changes would have to be made. This is due to the fact that a jet cannot follow the same flight path as a propeller plane - particularly when arching - or turning in layman's terms. This is 100% a choice of London City Airport to increase the use of these bigger jets over propeller planes, and it is because of this that the flight paths have changed. LCY will tell you they are not responsible - yet the responsiblity lies very much on their runway.

The Civil Aviation Authority and London City Airport have been giving out interesting and conflicting responses to residents who have been complaining for the first time, and both have produced their own internal conflicting responses. They mention SIDs (Standard Instrument Departures) and in one sentence say there has been no flight path change, only in the next to state their has been a 'shift' and in another response admitting there has indeed been a change.

Take it from us, and your own ears: there has been a change, and the Civil Aviation Authority paperwork confirms this. Flight paths have changed over the Wanstead and Leyton areas - they have moved to affect homes which had previously not been affected. The CAA's authorisation of this change acknowledged that the change was not ideal, but pretty much stated that there was nowhere else for London City Airports big jets to fly over, so it's just tough luck.

You might be asking, why did this change go ahead though, when NATs issued a statement saying that "In February 23 2009 NATS announced that it is to conduct a new consultation on revised proposals for the TCN region". Well exactly!

NATS made that statement and then the Civil Aviation Authority promptly went and signed off the TCN proposals for change at London City Airport. Sneaky eh? One of our seasoned technical colleagues made the following comments on this whole smoke and mirror affair:

This is a splendid example of what lawyers termed "suppressio veri and suggestio falsi" until dog-Latin disappeared from the courts.

The routing of flights HAS been changed. Maybe not by a lot, bit it has changed. What they've done is develop a line of argument that the departure routes "are not designed for modern aircraft" (that's code for "heavier aircraft, flying faster, and with FMS settings designed more for passenger comfort than carrying out tighter turns").

Note that any consideration of the obverse: not permitting the use of aircraft which cannot follow the established SIDs; never enters their consiousness.

And it is downright shameful to claim that the required airspace change has gone though ALL of the stages of CAA's Airspace Change Process as defined in CAP725. What seems to have happened is that these changes for City were included in the TC North proposals, which got a severe kicking from the public and were withdrawn - EXCEPT that CAA were persuaded that despite accepting that TC North proposals were dead in the water, they could nod through the City component of those proposals in isolation, without telling too many people about it, nevertheless claiming that they'd followed the CAP725 rules. Disingenuous, or what?

What more can we say? Don't forget if you are a resident in these areas please check out our information on 'what you can do' and the meeting this Friday in Leyton.

Useful Links:

CAA Authorisation to change LCY flight paths:
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/7/20090220NATMACInformativeDecisionLetterLCA-PWRevision.pdf

CAA Announce Changes to flight path at LCY:
http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=14&pagetype=65&appid=7&newstype=n&mode=detail&nid=1736

Mary Honeyball and London City Airport

Mary Honeyball finally responded, albeit late, to some of our questions last night by email. She also wrote a public response on her own blog.

A resident initially emailed Mary on 7 November 2007, at the same time as emailing all other London MEPs. Mary failed to respond at that time, as did Robert Evans, though her colleague Claude Moraes, as well as other MEPs did respond. We accept what Mary says that the original email may have gone into her spam filter.

Mary came back onto the radar of the group when a resident discovered that she had declared her use of free parking at London City Airport, she was in fact the only London MEP who has declared use of this free parking. We understandably were interested in how many times Mary had used this facility, whether she flew a lot and how she felt about the impact of the airports expansion on the local area. We asked Mary for her comment and her side of the story on the parking issue and also the airports impact on the community as we offered to put her response on this blog. We highlighted the issue of excessive noise affecting childrens development and health and also Newham having the highest mortality rates in under 30's in the country. This request was sent to Mary on her online message form on Tuesday 5 May.

On 12 May we had decided that Mary perhaps wasn't going to respond at all and went ahead and blogged another article expressing our frustration with her for not responding to residents. We know that despite Mary having not responded, her office had spent a lengthy amount of time on our blog and website over a period of a few days.

We finally received an email from Mary last night:

'Thank you for writing. I did try and publish a comment on your blog but you appear to not allow comments, whereas I do. I've posted this response

http://thehoneyballbuzz.com/2009/05/13/my-use-of-london-city-airport/

on my blog.

Can you arrange to send me the 17 month old correspondence please? If the correspondence was emailed sometimes things get caught in my spam filter. I have checked for written correpondence, and can find nothing outstanding. Another possibility is that Claude Moraes MEP would have responded because he covers East London for Labour. The 3 Labour MEPs have divided London up into thirds for the last 5 years for casework. Robert Evans has covered West London. Claude Moraes has covered East London including Newham, and I have covered Central and South London. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,
Mary Honeyball
Labour MEP for London'

Ok, so Mary offers some explanations as to why she didn't respond in 2007, and we accept those. However Mary didn't answer all the queries we raised and we are still no further in knowing what she thinks about the expansion of London City Airport and the associated negative effects.

But also, although we accept that Mary has only used the car parking once in a year, we are very concerned that a privately owned airport (London City Airport) is offering free parking to ALL travelling MEPs. Is this morally right? Could this not be seen as a sweetener to keep MEPs on the airports side, particularly at a time when Global Investment Partners, (they are Credit Suisse and General Electric, the owners of London City Airport) are planning to expand flights to 176,000 over the most densely populated area in the country? And it goes further, this very same consortium are also bidding for Gatwick Airport.

This raises some serious issues, and of course we don't blame Mary for using the offer of free parking. However we do feel that MEPs whom use such offers from business should be more sensitive to the implications as they could be construed as a conflict of interest. At a time when the air above London City Airport exceeds EU directive levels by 50% and London is going be fined for this by the EU - it seems strange that the airport should give free parking to MEPs, and that it has been taken up.

We responded to Mary last night:

'Hi Mary

Thank you for the response.

Our blog site is for information and articles only, it is not set up for comments - purely because we have the email address, and also on the website we have a contact form which is automatically emailed in. I'm happy to publish your response on the blog if you wish though.

I have a list of the MEPs whom were emailed/written to and it indicates that you were emailed on 07.11.07. I'm afraid as I sent that email from a different PC I'm unfortunately unable to locate a copy. Claude replied on the 20.11.07 - but unfortunately yourself and your other colleague Robert Evans did not respond at all.

I'd be really interested to hear your position on the airport expanding and how you feel that the current air quality can be improved whilst it expands in this densely populated area. Currently the air quality exceeds EU levels by 50% over the airport, and this clearly has enormous health implications for the residents of South and East London. Do you think it is acceptable that the airport failed to take noise and air readings for 8 years and that the application to expand was based on 'estimated' noise data? More so how do you feel in regard to the London Borough of Newham not enforcing the Section 106 planning agreement and allowing these breaches of planning law to take place over such a long period of time? Were you also aware that planes were operating illegally from the airport for almost a year, and the company was found guilty and fined at Stratford Court?These are all extremely worrying issues.

I realise that you are an MEP and therefore your focus is on European issues, but clearly these regional issues overlap into the European remit and I would value your comments on them and how you feel you could assist in addressing them for Londoners within your role.

Yours sincerely'

This response to Mary, simply repeated some of the previous requests raised in the email sent to her on 5 May. We really hope Mary can take the time to respond to all the issues raised as they are important to the community, as they affect us all in one way or another.

Picking up on Mary's comment about us not having a comment facility - those of you that know us and those of you that don't have long been commenting to us directly, and these comments are published as requested. You may also be aware that this blog is written by a selection of contributors. But most of all the point is that we are always open for dialogue and always have been, that is why we email asking questions and for opinions.

You can contact us on: fighttheflights@yahoo.com or alternatively you can use the contact page on the website. We're always open for business!

London City Airports Most Polluting Routes On Map

For the first time, you are able to see the amount of harmful emissions which London City Airport routes create over Europe on a map here. You can also see London City Airports Top 10 destinations by passengers.

The map shows the flight paths for LONDON CITY in 2008. Note that this does not take into account non-passenger air movements or any factors that would make emissions on a given route higher than normal (per passenger mile). For airports with large amounts of freight or non-commercial aviation the numbers will be higher than this total.

The total amount of CO2 emissions from London City Airport passenger flights in 2008 was 94454.86 tonnes.

Just how many of those trips could have been made by a less polluting rail trip? Quite a few by the appearance, especially Edinburgh. We'll be doing a follow up on the alternatives later on in the month.

Please consider TRAIN over PLANE if rail is an alternative.

Building 1000 Costs Public Over Two Million A Year

It couldn't get worse for the residents of Newham under the chaotic, disorganised and autocratic leadership of Newham Council. Building 1000 is a subject we've covered before. It is an office block built alongside the Royal Docks by London City Airport. It remained empty for years - obviously the airport had created such huge property and environmental blight on the building that nobody wanted to experience the delights of working in the area, let alone live in the area. Building 1000 momentarily had some use in it's years of sitting empty: it once appeared in a Post Office advert (now that's like a kiss of death) - and in 'Spooks'. It was noted that on each occasion the takes did not include aircraft landing and taking off in the background. They'd have had to do a voice over if so as the excessive noise levels of jets in the area would have stopped all recording.

But don't worry - Newham appears to have come to the rescue of Building 1000, and was happy to sacrifice an alledged 600 council jobs for the pleasure. But it gets worse: Newham appear to have seen fit to moving some of their staff into the blighted building, and you'd expect it to be good value being that nobody else wanted to move into it because of the environmental conditions surrounding it, wouldn't you? Oh no, Newham doesn't do 'economical' when it comes to trying to save face and appears to want to hide and deny that the whole of the area around the airport for a good few miles or so, is so blighted that few want to live or work there - except those connected to the airport- all couple of hundred of them. Clearly Building 1000 laying empty was an embarassment to Newham and their claims that the airport regenerates, when in fact, ummm it appears to stifle and stop regeneration in many ways.

A freedom of information request has revealed the staggering running costs for Building 1000 from 1st April 2008 to 30th November:

• Rates £993,300
• Insurance £85,379
• Cleaning £2,227
• Management Fee £1,171,053 *
  
  *This is the cost of the building management and facilities management contract which
  includes security costs

But of course, don't forget, the airport apparently doesn't cause property blight at all, even though other airports such as Stansted and Heathrow do on homes and businesses that are not connected to the aviation industry. It seems that London City Airport costs Newham Residents more than meets the eye, you can now add property blight to the list of 'bills'. Add this to all the security costs at the airport which London taxpayers pay in whole, and which Newham doesn't think that London City Airport should pay, and you'd be forgiven for feeling that this airport is continuously propped up by the public purse. In more ways than one. It seems that the airport not only relies on the public purse to run, it also severely stifles job growth in east London... and a healthy environment.

British Airways Can't Do The Maths

British Airways Press Release (see below)just further misleads the residents of East London and beyond, and those who care about the environment.

Now lets make the article they have released CLEARER to the press and RESIDENTS.

1.British Airways DON'T say that they are YET to receive approval from the Civil Aviation Authority to fly the polluting jets out of London City Airport. The Jets HAVE to meet noise restrictions and we have not seen any notification from the CAA that they have approved the jets operation.

2. BA's Peter Simpson claims the new Embraer is helping them to meet 'environmental objectives'. This is utter NONSENSE when BA are INCREASING flights.

BA claim that the Embraer will improve C02 emissions by UP TO 56%. The trouble is that London City Airport has had a 50% increase in the amount of flights approved by Newham Council - despite the appalling environmental effects on East Londoners.

So lets do the maths:

Apart from the fact that the jets will contribute to excessive noise pollution for 100,000s of residents in the middle of the most densely occupied area of the Country consider:

that a 50% increase in flight expansion out of London City Airport has been approved, this will result in 120,000 flights a year in a RESIDENTIAL AREA, no doubt many of them British Airways' own.

So 50% extra flights of bigger, noisy jets versus UP TO 56% CLAIMED reduction in CO2 emissions...

Hmmm allegedly the maths indicate that this works out at about NO DIFFERENCE in C02 emissions over East London! Isn't it just another case of GREENWASH? For British Airways to make any difference (reduce) in their emissions from London City Airport, they would need to maintain the level of flights they have had in the past at the airport - not increase them, new jets or not.

_______________________________________________________________________________

British Airways has placed firm orders for a fleet of 11 new generation fuel efficient aircraft that will offer passengers unrivalled levels of space and comfort on board.

The airline's wholly owned subsidiary BA CityFlyer is to take delivery of the first of its new Embraer aircraft, which will fly exclusively from London City Airport, from September 2009. ........

Newham State Current Outstanding Environmental Issues Can Be Addressed By Expansion

Newham Planning's Case Officer has suggested that giving LCA approval to expand is the only way to secure improvements in monitoring and mitigation of environmental and noise issues.

Strange how the airports own 'up to date, state of the art' noise monitoring and the requirements of the section 106 put in place by the LB Newham didn't manage to achieve this over the past 7 years.....what hypocrisy LB Newham is full of. They share with LCA one thing: a total disregard for the impact on residents of noise and pollution. We have never seen anywhere in which a judgement on the environment and noise effects on a community can be made in the absence of actual noise measurements or an independent environmental impact study - and why is that? LB Newham appear to be scared to carry out their own independent readings for fear of the reality and of having to refuse LCA the application perhaps? We can only speculate on that. The circus they promote is an utter disgrace to their respective sectors. This will do nothing but further galvanise objectors to see this farcical consultation and application be called in by the Secretary of State.

Following paragraph taken from page 8 of the LB Newham LCA Committee report:

Having assessed the information submitted with the application, and the additional information to complete the Environmental Statement requested by way of Regulation 19 notices, it is concluded that there are negative environmental and economic impacts as well as economic benefits to the proposal. While mitigation can be achieved certain impacts such as the noise levels in outside open spaces cannot be effectively overcome. It is considered that on balance the adverse impacts of the proposal are not such as would justify withholding consent in light of the benefits and the relevant policy considerations. This is considered to be a finely balanced recommendation which can only be made subject to securing more effective monitoring and mitigation of the airport’s impacts on the local environment than are currently achieved. It is recognised that consent allows the opportunity to secure improvements in this regard.

Newham Council - Do they ignore residents and only listen to big business?

London City Airport, like most airports whom have no other positives to spin regarding airport expansion (as there are so few), regularly try and bait Councils and residents with the promise of job creation. You may recall London City Airport's words, that lack wisdom at the best of times, stating that job creation will make up for the environmental impacts. Clearly that is not the case at all. You can read an article on this issue entitled 'Jobs are used to justify anything - but the numbers don't add up' by George Monbiot.

A few, rather naive/autocratic elected officials may buy this - but clearly they have not read through the masterplan which aims at 176,000 flights per year, nor the current application by LCA with regard to how many residents are going to suffer from increased pollution and noise levels. Essentially living in the area will be a nightmare and the sky full of noise will hardly 'benefit' residents no matter how much spin the pinnochios put on it.

46,000+ additional residents will be bought into the noise contours which means noise is on the increase - and that is just an estimate. Of course if London City Airport and LB Newham had actually been doing their jobs properly with regard to community responsibility over the past 20 years: that is carrying out accurate and regular noise and air pollution monitoring from London City Airport then we wouldn't be having to quote that the noise levels are just estimates.

In reality the 46,000 residents being bought into the new noise maps could be just the tip of the iceberg so a few hundred jobs (that are not even certain) really are not a good enough bargaining tool at all.

Compare the suffering of increasing noise levels to LCA's offer of job creation ' to make up for it' against the environmental impacts of increasing noise levels and air pollution. LCA may like to think it's generous, but its a shame that the 'locals' haven't benefited from LCA operations in the past 20 years and continue to pay for it's security in the bargaining. But then LCA get paid to say how good the firm is and put a nice spin on it - at any cost.

Employment we must remind you, appears to be only open to those that can afford to own a car, or have access to one, and that 'local jobs' mean within a five mile radius - which in reality does not interpret as local jobs for Newham residents.

Alongside this the fact that official bodies regularly make statements about the jobs that go unfilled throughout London it seems to us that the jobs that LCA are plying Newham with are irrelevant to the application for expansion. If Newham are foolish enough to buy this line after 20 years of LCA's operation then they are even more foolish than we currently believe they are.

We feel that those elected officials who use the job scenario as the one item that supports the application need to start opening their eyes and getting a little more in contact with what is happening in the job market and the implications of the expansion on THEIR constituents.

Or is it just a case for some of these elected individuals to yes to business all the way - regardless of the 46,000+ residents who will pay a very high price for so few jobs of which the vast majority will not go to Newham residents?

We wondered if they also factored the continuing cost to residents who pay for LCAs £7million security bill? Going by a few outrageously un-informed statements we've seen and heard by elected and paid officials (who we will be keeping a close eye on), we think it is very likely that they don't even know about that little sum!

Job creation does not have to be at the cost of 46,000+ residents suffering increasing noise levels and health problems linked to aviation activities.

If LCA paid their £7million security costs, instead of Londoners paying it, it might just free up £7million for employment training, start up grants etc to create jobs that pay a salary that sustains a family and offers real opportunities and career growth for locals - not opportunities that are only open to them if they own, or have access to a car!

Greenwich and Lewisham Public Meeting

Wednesday 23^rd April

7.30 pm

Recital Room, Blackheath Halls

23 Lee Rd, SE3 9RQ

Speaker: John Stewart, Chair HACAN

What the Government’s proposals could mean for South East London:

All flights will land over South East London if Heathrow Expansion plans go ahead

Introduction of ‘Mixed-Mode’ at Heathrow: 730 flights a day

Third Runway: 950 flights a day

‘Mixed-Mode and a Third Runway 1100 flights a day

The maps produced by the Department during its recent consultation on Heathrow expansion show that all aircraft landing over London will join their final landing path as far east as Woolwich and Bexley and then fly in two parallel paths to Heathrow.

The northern flight path: Greenwich – Peckham – Camberwell – Vauxhall

The southern flight path: Blackheath – Deptford – Dulwich – Stockwell/Brixton

________________________________________________________________________

Residents in south east London must not forget that these flights are in addition to the current flights at London City Airport - and their dream of having 176,000 flights per year - which all adds up to making South East London a very noisy and polluted place to live in. If you have not already entered your postcode on the NATs website to see how the proposed new flight paths will affect you please do - some residents were shocked to find themselves under 12 flight paths in the area they live in within south east London!

For some, 'sweet dreams' will be a thing of the past.

FTF

Fight the Flights Hits BBC Radio London 94.9 Airwaves

FTF were invited to speak on the morning breakfast show presented by Joanne Good and Paul Ross this morning, and have since featured on the regular news bulletins since. The focus was; Fight the Flights, London City Airports application to increase flights to 120,000, the lack of consultation, the impact of pollution upon residents across the boroughs, and how LB Newham have cancelled the hearing of the application, originally planned for tomorrow, and that no further date has yet been issued.

Campaign organiser Neil Pearce described the experiences of residents living in the residential areas nearest to the airport: West Silvertown, the Royal Docks and North Woolwich and how each area is subjected to incredibly high levels of aircraft noise and how any increase is unsustainable for the communities affected.

He also raised the Mayor of London's vision of creating a 'city in the East' - and how this would clearly not be possible if expansion goes ahead as the area would be made mostly uninhabitable by deafening levels of noise and pollution. He went on to document the consultation farce carried out by LB Newham - indicating the multiple deadlines that have been given for objections to the application - but which have been consistently replaced by another in response to complaints received regarding residents NOT being consulted.

If you missed the programme, you can listen again by clicking here.

One (well rather more) Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Residents have been reporting back to us for some time the high amount of planes that have aborted landings at London City Airport.

Residents notice these as the sound of a jet at low level less than a mile from the end of the runway firing back up into a climb at a steep angle is incredibly noisy over residential areas. They also worry that these events of firing off mean that more of those harmful emissions to humans are spurted over their homes.

We are also wondering if when there are aborted landings whether these count as one noise factored movement or two- even though the plane has to re-circle and attempt to land for the second time?? So in effect, residents experience such events as two movements. But the murky world of aviation statistic manipulation is bound to count it as one we suspect!

We don't have aborted landing figures from Heathrow but we suspect that the amount of landings aborted at LCA are relatively much higher due to the nature of the landings required and the exposed position to adverse weather conditions - another reason to suspect their ability to manage any more flights than they already have.

What we've got to look forward to???

In December the New Scientist reported that 'noise kills in much the same way as stress does'.

Noise pollution reaches new levels in Cairo.... according to the weekends news: It causes "an accumulation of stress hormones, inflammation and changes in body chemistry that eventually lead to problems such as impaired blood circulation and heart attacks."

Pictured above - Brittania Village, West Silvertown - a large residential development which, if approval goes ahead, will suffer from increased noise levels.

An environmental health specialist said: "Noise severely affects pregnant women who are permanently exposed to it. It causes retraction in blood vessels and they give birth to small babies," she added.

Pictured below newly/being built flats which will be subjected to an estimated ear blasting 79db upon flight expansion.


"The cost of this is enormous -- we can count non-concentration at work, absenteeism, accidents, handicaps," she said. "Protecting ourselves from noise is much less expensive than what it may cost later."


According to the World Health Organisation, which considers noise pollution to be the world's third worst after polluted air and water, exposure for more than eight hours a day to sound in excess of 85 db is potentially hazardous.

Fight the Flights knows that LCA have those flattering estimates of noise levels which we know are not the levels which residents are measuring....and they might not be at 85db now...but it won't be long before they reach those levels if expansion goes ahead.

It's about time the actual noise levels were revealed to residents in the area, that is of course when LCA have sorted out the equipment at the east end of the runway so that the results are valid and reliable...will LCA come clean?

At what price comes flight expansion at LCA?

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080125/thl-egypt-pollution-health-noise-a0a7e8a_1.html

NOISE Complaints - Mr Grafton's the name....Rob Grafton

As we are here to help provide information that London City Airport (LCA) and Newham Council only tend to provide to 1/2 kilometre of homes around the airport we thought we would post this rather useful information (this is available on the London City Airport Consultative Committee website http://www.lcacc.org/comment/ - but I couldn't find anything on the LCA site surprisingly enough!).


London City Airport are keen to boast the low level of complaints they have received over the years...but as we all know things have changed as of late with regard to the activities, and noise has grown to irritating levels for many communities - we don't want this to get worse. Of course low levels of complaints - may have something to do with communities not knowing who to complain to, I suspect this is even more so for those that don't have internet access.

But we suspect that some may have been reporting to their local councils and the complaints may not have been passed on (from our information it seems that many councils are not even aware of who to contact and the procedure), or perhaps some are even being fobbed off at an early stage.

So we ask you to please drop Mr Grafton, who is LCA's Environment and Planning Manager a line or two....and copy in Robin Whitehouse, Newham Council's Environmental Officer.


They both deal with complaints about LCA planes or environmental issues - whether the aircraft be on the ground, or flying over your home...no matter which borough you are in:


RobGrafton@londoncityairport.com cc Robin.Whitehouse@newham.gov.uk

or you can write to Mr Grafton at:

London City Airport
Royal Docks
London
E16 2PX

Telephone: 020 7646 0200, Fax: 020 7473 9588

and Mr Whitehouse at:

London Borough of Newham

Alice Billings House

2-12 West Ham Lane

London

E15 4SF

Telephone: 020 8534 4545, Extn 25771, Fax: 020 8557 8869