Following up on our report in the Summer Journal, we are pleased to say that London City Airport has not been permitted to extend its operating hours to include Saturday afternoons and evenings. There followed an anxious six week wait for campaigners while the airport decided whether it would challenge this further in the courts, but they did not and for now operating hours will remain as they are. This felt like a big win for those wanting to defend quiet skies over Dulwich and across East London. Airport Planning Inquiries almost always go in favour of the development.
The Inquiry had three parties involved: Newham Council as the host planning authority, City Airport and HACAN East, the main campaigning organisation concerned with that airport. The Forest Hill Society shared expertise and resources with HACAN East with the main objective of halting the proposed extension to Saturday flying. We secured significant donations from across East London, including from the Forest Hill Society, that enabled us to commission expert legal backing. Our team was led by a leading environmental barrister, Estelle Dehon KC, while our expert witnesses presented evidence on aircraft noise disturbance, health impacts, economics and planning.
The airport has secured expansion of sorts - they have been permitted to increase the annual limit on the number of passengers, but there will be no increase in the number of annual flights permitted, which remains at 111,000 aircraft movements per year.
The next big issue for overflown Londoners is to be the complete redesign of flight paths. Most people in our area will know that we are affected by Heathrow flights, whose early morning arrivals over Dulwich create sleep disturbance for many. We are also affected by the narrow, concentrated arrivals flightpath to London City, which is kept very low due to the Heathrow traffic immediately above it.
The Civil Aviation Authority and Department for Transport have proposed the creation of a new body, a UK Airspace Design Service, to oversee the complex interactions between airports as they negotiate use of airspace. The first phase of UKADS work will cover all of the London area.
Individuals, community groups and Borough Councils will have an opportunity to have their say. The first consultation is on the powers, structures and governance to shape UKADS itself. Just launched at the time of writing, this consultation will close on 17 December. Consultations.caa.co.uk/policy-development/ukads-consultation.
Next year we can expect to see public consultations on plans for new flight paths. These paths will be narrow and concentrated - community groups and our Borough Councils may need to get involved to try and mitigate the impacts for our neighbourhoods.
Effective mitigations would include Continuous Ascent and Continuous Descent routes - this would mean that City flights could fly higher for longer and no longer be held down low over Dulwich by higher Heathrow ones. We could also seek respite routes for all airports, that is to say that routes will alternate in a planned way so that the same residents do not see low traffic over them all the time. And routes from different airports need to be untangled in such a way that residents do not experience low flying from more than one source.
So, while we can celebrate a Planning Inquiry win, some of the decisions that will impact SE London for many years to come are coming our way. There will be opportunities for the Forest Hill and Dulwich Societies to try to influence this and to support our respective Borough Councils in making their own contributions.
Given the complexities of all this, ideas, support and guidance should become available as these consultations are launched from organisations like HACAN East (London City), HACAN (Heathrow) and nationally from the Aviation Environment Federation. For more information visit hacaneast.org.uk
Tim Walker writes as a member of the Forest Hill Society. He also contributes to the work of HACAN East and sits on the Executive Council of the Aviation Environment Federation.