Leytonstone Residents

Sarah Innes had kindly summarised the main points from the Aircraft Noise meeting and forwarded to Councillor Marie Pye as the Labour Party was not represented:

The presenters were very well informed. The problem is not only not going to go away, the increase in noise we have experienced this summer is the tip of the iceberg. I briefly summarise some of the main points below that are of immediate concern and require immediate action…

1. Number of flights is set to to increase by at least 150%.
   Permission was granted by Newham in July for an increase in flights from 70 to 120,000 this year, and then to 170,000 next year.  Based on the past track record, these limits will be exceeded by a considerable percentage. Further changes were made to London City Airport as a result of planning application for extra flights submitted to the London Borough of Newham. This application was not referred to Waltham Forest Council
2. Increase in noise is not only due to the number of fights, but the type of aircraft.
   The airport is allowing  jets rather than turbo props.  The result is a wider path that comes right over our borough from noisier aircraft.  This trend is set to continue. This may lie behind the first reason for increase in noise set out in your press release: London City Airport recently changed the direction of some of their flights particularly from Runway 28.
3. The increase in noise comes also from an increase in flights coming in to land from the Heathrow stacks at Chesham and at Epping.
   The number of these flights is also increasing. Air traffic control at Heathrow airport has been redirecting a considerable number of planes due to weather conditions during the summer. It may be more than just the weather … because of the increase in flights being stacked, planes are being released earlier from stacks and have to take a longer detour before joining the flight path to land.
4. An increase in noise is also coming from helicopters.
   A recent GLA meeting discovered that many of these flights are not, as commonly supposed, mainly from police helicopters, but from commercial flights “sightseeing” or going to private functions.
5. Private jets taking off from City airport are also increasing and are not counted.
6. Waltham Forest has the THIRD highest number of planes flying over it compared with all the other London Boroughs.
7. The problem is compounded by the fact that no one authority is responsible for overall aircraft noise.
   Different noise maps are produced for individual flights from London City Airport, and from Heathrow.  Noise from all the other aircraft are not taken into calculations and there is no overall noise mapping. The CAA, BAA, City Airport, et al all pass the buck to each other and refuse to take responsibility or indeed measure anything that accurately reflects cumulative noise.
8. The level of pollution exceeds current EU limits and will fail the new, higher limits from January this year.
   The result is, according to one figure, that over 7000 Londoners die earlier as a result of air pollution per year.

 

Residents may be interested to know that there is public meeting scheduled to discuss aircraft noise over the Leytonstone & Wanstead area.

Details are as follows :

Friday 2nd October at 7.00PM
Quaker Meeting Hall
Bush Road off the Green Man Roundabout
Leytonstone