Labour’s Legacy
How noise levels from Heathrow have increased dramatically under Labour
A Green Party Investigation in what has really happened since 1997
The Green Party would:
1997 – 2005: Noise Levels Rise Relentlessly
"The Government will do everything practicable to ensure that the noise climate around Heathrow continues to improve"
Glenda Jackson, Aviation Minister 28th October, 1997 (Hansard)
Glenda Jackson, Labour’s first Aviation Minister after it took power in May 1997, expected noise from aircraft using Heathrow would decrease. How wrong she was! This investigation by the Green Party shows that, despite much spinning of the figures by Labour, in 2005 more people than ever before are disturbed by noise from Heathrow aircraft.
The figures are dramatic.
Although some individual aircraft have become quieter since 1997, any reduction in noise levels has been offset by the huge increase in the number of planes.
1997 – 2005: How the noise has spread
"I am on the flight path to flight path to Heathrow and must endure a non-stop cacophony of groaning aircraft over the street. The confusion for me is that I live in Camberwell and that is over 15 miles from Heathrow."
Aircraft noise is no longer just a problem for the areas around the airport. Heathrow has become a city-state whose tentacles envelop London and the Thames Valley. To cater for the huge increase in the number of aircraft using the airport, flight paths have effectively been extended. In 1997 Jackson confirmed to the House of Commons that this was beginning to happen:
"When the airport is busy, which is much of the day, aircraft will often join the ILS [final landing path] further east over Battersea, Brixton or Lewisham." (Hansard, 28/10/97).
Since then, things have got much worse.
By 2002, more than 400,000 people in London alone rated aircraft noise as ‘a serious problem’ (GLA Household Survey 2002)
By 2003, around 400 planes a day were flying over Stockwell in South London – that’s around one every two minutes in an area at least 15 miles from Heathrow (The NOW! Campaign, HACAN ClearSkies 2003)
And in 2003, BAA admitted that half of all planes landing at Heathrow when the prevailing west wind was blowing came in over the Highbury/Stoke Newington area of North London.
Regular complaints about Heathrow aircraft now come from as far west as Henley-on-Thames, as Far East as Greenwich and Blackheath and as far north as Highbury, Hampstead and Stoke Newington.
This is Labour’s legacy.
More Noise = Less Noise
Labour’s spin machine in action
Rarely has New Labour’s spin machine been so successful as in the field of aircraft noise. It has persuaded so many politicians that, despite the huge increase in the number of planes using Heathrow, fewer people are affected by the noise of the planes in 2005 than when Labour came to power in 1997.
And the figures are convincing……….at first sight
In 2003, (only!) 269,200 experienced unacceptable levels of noise from Heathrow aircraft
In 1997 the number was 300,000
Unspinning the spin
Labour manages to get these astonishing results by mismanaging the way it measures noise:
If the Labour Government adhered to the World Health Organisation’s noise recommendations, it could not deny that, by 2005, around one million people in London and the Thames Valley could be moderately annoyed by Heathrow aircraft and over half a million may be seriously annoyed.
But just before the last election…
In May 2001, a month before the last General Election, Labour made an announcement. The then Aviation Minister, Bob Ainsworth, announced that the Government was going to commission a new study into people’s attitudes to aircraft noise:
"This new study underlines the Government’s commitment to underpin our policy on aircraft noise by substantial research that commends the widest possible confidence
." (DfT press release 8/5/01).Four years on, the study has still not been published. And, in any case, it seems it will be less comprehensive than first appeared, with the emphasis being on the monetary value people put on relief from noise, rather than how much it annoys them.
There’s a limit to spin. It lies in the experience of hundreds of thousands of people in London and the Thames Valley who know that aircraft noise has become worse since Labour came to power in 1997.
Labour has been found out
2005 – Noise Climate Set To Get Even Worse
"Significant reductions in source noise were achieved in the 1970s. Large improvements of this kind through the application of new technology are no longer possible. Combined with the continued strong growth of air transport, this means that total noise exposure may increase in the future…the trade-off between noise reduction at source and increased traffic cannot ensure future decreases in noise contour areas."
Civil Aviation Authority report by Porter and Rhodes, 2002.New Labour is the first Government in over 30 years to plan for a climate where aircraft noise will get worse.
Previous governments knew that increased noise levels that would result from their plans to expand aviation had a reasonable chance of being offset by the introduction of quieter aircraft. That is no longer the case. The CAA conclusions quoted above were backed up consultants Arthur D. Little, who provided a technical report for the Government in 2000.The technical improvements to cut noise will not match the huge growth in aircraft numbers that are predicted.
Under Labour’s plans, Heathrow could face the prospect of over 700,000 flights a year.
The Government wants to make fuller use of the airport’s existing two runways. It has also made clear in its Aviation White Paper that it favours a third runway at Heathrow if it can find ways of keeping air pollution levels in the area below the legal limits laid down by the European Union. A recent report from the Civil Aviation Authority (December 2003, by D.P.Rhodes) revealed that a new runway, plus greater use of existing runways, could result in around 735,000 flights a year – almost 300,000 more than currently use the airport.
The Labour Legacy 1997 – 2005
Constituencies with over 100 extra flights a day under Labour:
Battersea; Brentford and Isleworth; Ealing North; Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush; Hammersmith and Fulham; Hayes and Harlington; Putney; Richmond Park; Slough; Feltham and Heston; Spelthorne; Twickenham; Windsor
Constituencies, relatively untroubled 10 years ago, now getting as many as 400 flights a day*:
Camberwell and Peckham; Cities of London and Westminster; Dulwich and West Norwood; Greenwich and Woolwich; Hampstead and Highgate; Kensington and Chelsea; Lewisham East; Lewisham West; Lewisham Deptford; North Southwark and Bermondsey; Poplar and Canning Town; Streatham; Vauxhall
Constituencies where a significant problem emerged in Labour’s second term:
Hackney North and Stoke Newington; Hackney South and Shoreditch; Hornsey and Wood Green; Islington North; Islington South and Finsbury; Finchley and Golders Green; Tooting
The Labour Future
Those are the plans on Labour’s drawing board. They are hardly a surprise coming from a Government which has such close links to the aviation industry; from a Government which appealed against a judgement in the European Court of Human Rights, so it could continue with the hated night flights at Heathrow.
If the future is Labour, the future is noise