London City Airport & Newham: How do you trim down a Public Safety Zone?

By ignoring the model that the Department of Transport provides to calculate it of course!

The public safety zone* maps (see definition of PSZ below) which LCA submitted to the London Borough of Newham appear not to have been drawn up using the required model provided by the Department of Transport. This gives the effect of making the public safety zone areas smaller than they should be and covering less households, and also perhaps, schools and other sensitive places - such as prospective bridges. Is this simply yet another attempt to bury the bad news so they can get those extra flights out - at any cost??

We can't think why they would ignore the DfT model to draw up the Public Safety Zones with the result in making them smaller? Even stranger that LB Newham didn't enforce that DfTs model was used in the process of the PSZ mapping by the consultants employed by LCA.

But it's not strange at all...it is just the continuing saga of LCA and Newham's disingenous behaviour throughout the whole of the consultation and application to expand LCA flights to 120,000 this year and another 50% next year, taking them up to 176,000 per year.

*What is a 'Public Safety Zone'? It is an area which is a long triangular shape at each end of any runway which is deemed at more risk of being affected by an air traffic incident upon take off or landing. The triangular shape widens and lengthens in accordance to the type, and number, of planes operating out of the airport.

Guidelines are set by the Department of Transport in how this area should be calculated and mapped out and where homes, traffic etc should not occupy the area at all, or in small numbers. New buildings are not allowed to be built in the PSZ unless planning approval was given before the PSZ was identified, current homes of which residents will find themselves being covered by the PSZ map are simply told to live with the risk. Despite the guidelines being set by the DfT it is the responsibility of the local council to apply them.

PSZ Enquiries: Department for Transport: 020 7944 8300 - Airports Section.
Document: free to download.

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....

Newham Waits For NATS Report

The NATS report on the Thames Gateway Bridge and safety, which has held up the decision on LCAs expansion is still in progress. No Newham Planning hearing of the application can go ahead until the Mayor of London's office has received the report. In the meantime the Government Office for London is continuing to receive large amounts of evidence from residents in support of a call in of the application.

We will post any news on this as soon as we receive it.

Deferral of Decision and Mayor states hard to justify more than 120,000 flights

All the fun of the circus was had at the Newham development control meeting yesterday!

We all committedly (those of us who could get the day off work) went along to Stratford Town Hall, with plenty of support from Hacan, FOE, residents, and some very welcome climate camp members on their way to Kingsnorth, and the press, to hear the London City Airport flight expansion application decision.

In what could only be described as a farce, we were all sat down in the Chamber and told:

1. The chair wasn't able to be there so the deputy chair Cllr Pat Murphy was to act in his absence.
2. Cllr Murphy then declared a conflict of interest and left the chamber.
3. The rest of the planning committee then voted for a temporary chair.
4. The temporary chair then read out a message from The Mayor of London's office to ask a decision to be deferred, or that the Mayor would have to make a request to the Secretary of State to 'call in' the application in on the grounds of a safety report that is currently being carried out for the proposed (?) Thames Gateway Bridge.
5. The decision was taken to defer, rather than face a public inquiry at this stage (!), until the report is available and the safety aspects considered.
6. Some residents expressed their annoyance to the committee for wasting their time and in having to take a day off work to attend, another requested that the committee consider holding the meeting at the more usual time, in the evening, and give more notice to residents.

In addition the Newham case officer was absent as he was on a long haul flight that day....it just doesn't get any better.

The Mayor has supported the application to expand to 120,000 flights on the basis of what we see as flawed information. We have been advised that in a judicial review it would be seen that way too: no reliable actual noise or air pollution data for a period of years, and employment figures pulled out of a hat by LCA (remember 406 directly employed staff become 2000 staff when LCA say it has 'created' the jobs!!), and a lack of detailed information on the environmental effects on the communities across the whole of London. Some of these points were raised as weaknesses by the GLA planner in the GLA planning report but the Mayor appears to be happy to make a decision over Londoners health, safety and the environment regardless of the lack of detailed information.

However The Mayor also stated that flights above 120,000 would be hard to justify, so regardless of what happens at the next meeting - that throws a bit of a spanner in LCA's masterplan for greed not need!

The re-scheduled round maybe in a months time, and we still await a decision from GOL. The best thing were the glum faces, after the LCA PR machine had been feeding the national media that Newham were set to approve the application at yesterdays meeting. Shame they didn't have a crystal ball that time. And what happens if the report on the bridge comes back and says 'no more planes'?

Oh dear, it just never goes to plan for LCA and LB Newham!!