Representation by Martin Shaw
- Date submitted
- 29 May 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I want to tell you about the blight the Airport causes. I live on the north edge of St Albans. Primarily planes take off going towards the west and then, in the main, turn 180 degrees to fly east just north of St Albans [maybe you call this the RNAV route]. At the point they pass my house they are flying low, but they are on full throttle as they are beginning to climb rapidly as they are reaching the end of the Airport flight path restriction. So, the aircraft are close to my house, they are flying low, and they are on full throttle. Unsurprisingly, this persistently disturbs me and this is worst in the early morning and late at night when I’m in bed trying to sleep. I find it a particular problem in the mornings because as soon as the Airport runway opens a stream of aircraft take off only a few minutes apart and that persistent noise of planes flying over wakes me. Looking back 10 years, my home was not blighted by aircraft noise – the Airport was much smaller and the RNAV route (which concentrates air traffic in a corridor close to my house) was not in place. Then in about 2013 the Airport got permission to increase its capacity from 9m passengers to 18m. This was meant to be over the period to 2028 and within strict noise criteria, but the Airport just put this plan to one side and grew to the maximum passenger limit much quicker than it said, and in doing so persistently breached the noise criteria. The Airport benefitted from this, but residents, such as me, paid the price. There needs to be a balance between benefits and detrimental impacts. The Aviation Environment Federation recognises this – “AEF is concerned that…managing noise impacts will lose out in trade- offs…with providing increased capacity”. Please don’t let this happen again. It’s time for the Airport to show it can operate within the current restrictions – I note that neither the commitment to 5000 feet by the railway line or the introduction of quieter aircraft that was promised on the introduction of the RNAV route have been delivered. Only then, and when we’re closer to 2028, should further expansion be considered, and this expansion needs to be reasonable in the context of balancing resident amenity with benefits for the airport operator – 32m passengers is ridiculous given the blight I, and many others, have suffered due to the increase from 9m to 18m passengers.