Jet vs Propellor: Greenwich Council's Failure

As we've documented before Greenwich Council are the only neighbouring council who continue to blindly support London City Airport expansion. However as we revealed some time ago, their support is based on absurd data and a report of errors by the planning officer which clearly showed that he had little or no understanding of the environmental impact of aircraft noise on the residential areas that Greenwich allow to continue to be built beneath the flight paths. Greenwich Council appear to have based their decision to support on noise data taken from STATIONARY ACTIVITIES ON THE LCY RUNWAY, EVEN THOUGH THE RUNWAY IS NOT IN THE BOROUGH OF GREENWICH! But let's just explain the background a little more:

Two years ago local councillor for Thamesmead Moorings and deputy head of the council Cllr Peter Brooks, assured a local resident that if they could provide the evidence that his officer had advised them incorrectly that he would get the issue sent back to the planning committee. The evidence was provided but a few weeks later the resident received a letter saying that the complaint was going to be forwarded to Newham Council to be dealt with. Once again, Greenwich Council were not willing to face the facts nor take responsiblity for their officer making a huge error in their planning report and recommendations to the planning committee.

The Greenwich Planning officer recommended to support the expansion of LCY. On looking through his report, it seemed apparent that not all of the information had been available to Greenwich, or that it had not been fully grasped by the officer as we found some serious errors/understanding in his report. The officer clearly believed, and continues to, as does the council on his advice: that propellor planes are noisier than jets. How silly is that!!

The LCY annual categorisation report, indicating that props are quieter than jets, has been forwarded to Greenwich on more than one occasion and yet with no response which addresses the error of the officer and how this clearly would have skewed the premise of his recommendations to the planning committee. From independent noise monitoring in Greenwich a jet from LCY is a minimum of around 10 dbs louder than a prop when it flies overhead. Most props are around 72-76 dbs as they pass, most jets are around 84 dbs and upwards.

Greenwich Council have continued to run with the line pushing London City Airport to replace all props with jets as is in their response to the LCY noise action plan. But this is the worst thing, as we know, and is rather embarrassing for Greenwich Council. The growth of the use in jets at LCY is already creating further noise disturbance than in the past, and yet Greenwich Council are saying 'we want more jets'.

We could not understand what had led the Greenwich officer come to such a conclusion and so an FOI was submitted to them. The response showed that the Greenwich Officer based his assumptions and recommendations on ground noise data on the runway itself!

This is quite extraordinary. It is not clear which document that Greenwich extracted this information from, and whether or not it was the most recent application. But the use of this data makes no sense at all - as the runway is not even in Greenwich, and the noise heard in Greenwich is not only noise from on the runway, but largely noise from the jets as they fly over on their low level flight path!

In a further FOI request and response, Steve Pallet from Greenwich Councils' Planning Department stated that almost 5000 properties in West Thamesmead would be covered by an expanded noise contour, inclusive of the 2000 additional dwellings that have been given outline planning permission to be built at Tilfenland's Tamesis Point , which is partially in the Public Safety (crash) Zone but which the landowners claim "promotes real quality of life"!. This is a huge increase on the current dwellings affected and you would have thought that Greenwich would have considered why, if jets are supposed to be quieter, that the contour was even growing to that extent with the proposed expansion. It just makes no sense at all, even from a laypersons point of view. Greenwich clearly were not aware that the increase in jets over props had already increased rapidly at the time of their decision. What did they think was making the noise contour grow?

Greenwich seemed to be under the impression that noise monitoring should continue as it had by LCY (they appeared to have no idea that no reliable readings had taken place by the airport for around 8 years) and that all the data they had been provided with was based on estimates.

Greenwich Planning board supported the expansion, we believe 1 vote tipped this, and it is arguable that if the accurate facts were presented, that the board had been alerted to the possible environmental and health impacts, and that no health impact study had been carried out in Greenwich, that the planning board outcome would have been very different.

Furthermore, in regards to the Noise Action Plan consultation run by LCY and Greenwich's response to it: You will note that Greenwich still continue to push for more jets to replace props as they believe this will be quieter! This offers no prospect to the homes in the noise contour having noise levels halted, nor reduced at all.

No health impact study was carried out for Greenwich, despite it being the only borough with homes in the public safety zone (crash zone) and the Greenwich PCT have confirmed in an FOI request that they were NOT consulted on this issue. This seems peculiar, particularly as there are such severe respiratory and cardiovascular health issues in the area. The mortality data by ward in Greenwich, received from the PCT, for Thamesmead Moorings (the ward nearest to the airport in Greenwich) shows that actual cardiovascular mortality is well beyond the expected baselines for men and women. This corresponds with the evidence on links between cardiovascular disease and excessive noise/pollution around airports.

We do not believe that any environmental impact study was carried out specifically upon Greenwich, though this may have been missed.

So, what next for Greenwich? They are in an increasingly embarrassing position whilst there is growing political focus on the impact of LCY expansion than ever before and the upcoming judicial review challenging the increase of flights. This is in addition to the boroughs around Newham all noticing an increase in noise from the increased use of jets, who have been more than vocal about this: how on earth does this bypass Greenwich Council? Ear defenders are perhaps given out to the planning committee?

Woudn't it be nice, and terribly democratic, if the leader of Greenwich Council, Cllr Chris Roberts finally did the right thing and got this issue fully reviewed within Greenwich? Perhaps they might consider getting some professional advice next time, rather than the seemingly amateur assessment that was made and passed as a recommendation to the planning committee. They might want to consider why their officer felt that it was appropriate to use stationary noise taken from the airport in Newham rather than look at the estimated projected noise contours that were to widely expand over Greenwich, and Tamesis Point. Those 120,000 flights have to fly over Greenwich, they don't simply land vertically onto the runway.

All documents referred to in this blog item are available upon request.

LDA and Developers - Building Homes Under the Flight Path?

Who wins, who loses with new homes being built under flight paths and by the side of London City Airport? Government, developers or residents? We don't think most will have difficulty in guessing the right answer.

The London Development Agency - LDA's Thames Gateway is an area which is blighted by the increasing use of jets and proposed expansion of flights, but this is just the tip of the iceberg: there's the Lea Valley, the Olympic site (the powers to be haven't mentioned the effect of LCA flights on this area), Poplar, Isle of Dogs, London Riverside, Silvertown Quays. All will be affected when they are developed. LDA need to consider their position on how they expect residents to live along an increasingly noisy airport or beneath it's flightpath - and one that wants to get a lot noisier. After all, LDA are the freeholders of the land which LCA operates on - so they could do rather a lot.

Here's some of the key players in the current and future 'residential regeneration' of the areas affected beneath the flight paths of London City Airport:

Barratts - Elektron "....a brand new rail link will whisk you to London City Airport in just fifteen minutes, virtually door to door" . But you may feel like you are rather nearer than 15 minutes away from the airport by the levels of the noise from the planes as they take off overhead.

Tilfen - Tamesis Point Occupying one of 13 locations identified as an opportunity area in the Mayor's draft plan for London, Tamesis Point will see the creation of over 2,000 new homes along a mile of the Thames River.Within an outstanding location, this landmark scheme will be dominated by a north-south orientated axis with a series of grand public spaces and formal gardens.The development will take its influences from Georgian London, while the masterplan is designed to deliver fresh, contemporary architecture with landmark buildings and community and leisure facilities befitting the location. Will they tell prospective residents that the site is partially covered by the public safety zone and they will be in the new noise contours? That it is immediately beneath the low level flight path? The one thing that 'Georgian London' didn't have was 87db+ over the roofs of their homes every 90 seconds!

Silvertown Quays
Living and breathing spaces
Silvertown Quays will be an exciting mix of new residential districts providing private and social housing with new public spaces, landscaping and a rejuvenated dock area. It will be the location for some 5,000 attractive new homes in a variety of designs and sizes - fashioned by a range of innovative architects. Many will have stunning views over the Royal Docks and the Thames. All homes will provide modern living space. There will be access to a private garden, roof terrace or balcony, or there will be shared spaces in semi-private gardens.
Sustainable communities
"The creation of a sustainable community is the goal at Silvertown Quays, it will be focused on the UK Government's policy to encourage the regeneration of brownfield sites for the benefit of local communities. It will be a safe environment for both young and old. There will be new public open spaces, a primary school, health centre and community facilities."
Will they tell future residents that is it beneath a flight path, at the end of the runway, just at the tip of the 1 in 10,000 crash zone, that the current noise levels measure 87db+ per flight are and increasing? A safe environment? Suitable to build a school on and expect residents to spend time outside, let alone live there? As for using a balcony - having windows open won't be too much of an option, let alone sitting on a balcony!

It's about time that the decision makers started to see the bigger picture, and start working on evidence based policy making. What they are currently doing is not working - residents are not happy in the regeneration areas and who can blame them? Vortexes, high and increasing levels of jet noise, and air pollution - it's not exactly what any neighbourhood needs.

Airports expanding in densely built residential areas does not work, and to continue to new build in those areas only continues to deny residents any quality of life, misleads them, affects their health and their pockets. People make communities and they should come first.

Those dreams and plans of much needed homes are just all falling down....

Property Prices Crash Under the Flight Path

Property Prices on one recently built development under the flight path in Greenwich have crashed whilst those less than a few minutes walk away, but not under the flight path, nor in the noise contour, are flourishing. So it seems that the current general credit crunch effects cannot be applied.

A campaigner recently had their home valued and was told that their property value had decreased by £57,000 in 3 years. And this is just the tip of the iceberg other residents in the same development have lost over £100,000.

It's a tale of two developments - with exactly the same problems - but the only difference being that one is beneath the flight path.

London City Airport recently asked their friends to prove that airport expansion doesn't effect property prices. Interestingly their friends were not brave enough to use the area around London City Airport as an example. Instead they used Farnborough and Heathrow. Once again, it was a clear case of skirting around the real issue, something that LCA is so good at.

Something which is more valuable, and not tinged by the aviation industry is a study by Stop Stanstead Expansion group who were lucky enough to have a specialist to look at the effects of expansion on property values around Stanstead Airport. They estimated, after having looked at property data from over a period of years that: there had been a loss of £800 million on the value of local properties around the Stanstead areas.

What is more, Newham was also plummetting behind on the property front some time ago according to the Newham Recorder, well behind property trends elsewhere.

So how are the Government, house builders and land owners in the areas affected going to convince eager home owners to buy in the Thames Gateway which is overflown by LCA flights at low level? They say there is shortage of homes, but the Thames Gateway already has an image problem without Public Safety Zones and excrutiating noise levels of up to the mid - late 80dbs.

Developments such as Silvertown Quays, Tamesis Point and many others are going to have their work cut out. We'd like to see the developers be more vocal about the effects of expansion on the properties they are building- as the cat is definately out of the bag based on all the current evidence whether they like it or not. Why else wouldn't property agents be telling prospective buyers about the airport expansion plans and the associated noise, whilst others only like to show buyers around at the no flight time - Saturday afternoons.

All in all it's just another way in which residents are paying for the operation of London City Airport and the airlines, along with the £7million pound annual security that London taxpayers pay (which Richard Gooding has no intention of paying - see Wanstead and Woodford Guardian Q & A session with Richard Gooding) , the tax breaks, the pollution and effects on residents health. All picked up by...you, the taxpayer and local resident.