Latest news with #aircraftnoise
The Independent
01-08-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Like Sadiq Khan, I'm a Heathrow nimby – here's what I'd really like to do to the airport…
Andrew Adonis once told me that the third runway at Heathrow would never be built because the airport is surrounded by housing: 30 per cent of homes in the whole of Europe affected by aircraft noise louder than 55 decibels are around Heathrow. This was after he had been transport secretary in the last Labour government, when he was trying to get it built, so he knew what he was talking about. He thought there were just too many votes too close to the airport to make it a viable option. But the jumbo project does seem to be, finally, lumbering towards take-off. The Conservatives were against it, when David Cameron was in his green chameleon phase, but then they were in favour. Boris Johnson, the green convert and former mayor of London who had promised to lie in front of the bulldozers, had to be sent on a trip to Afghanistan while parliament voted for it to go ahead. Then came the coronavirus lockdowns; the skies over London were silent and people could hear birdsong again. The project was put back in the hangar. Now it is taxiing again, as the Labour government has confirmed that it supports a third runway plan. Ed Miliband, the keeper of the party's green conscience, opposed it while Labour was in opposition, but is now in favour of it. Heidi Alexander, the current occupant of Adonis's musical chair, will decide later this year between rival bids: a full-length third runway going over the M25, or two cheaper plans for a short runway that won't involve re-routing a motorway. Whatever she decides won't be built until at least 2035, which seems an absurdly early estimate. As my colleague Simon Calder explains, there will be a public consultation and legal challenges, including from Sadiq Khan, Johnson's successor as mayor of London. I agree with Sadiq. The really courageous decision by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves would be to cancel the plan now. Save us the delays and legal fees and paperwork and vast quantities of clever people's time. It would be right because the case for Heathrow expansion is weak, and it would be brave because the unthinking consensus is that Britain should build more infrastructure to stimulate economic growth. This is infrastructure, therefore we should build it. No, we shouldn't. To build one bit of infrastructure is to choose not to build another. I think there is better infrastructure to build. People only want to build this one because the existing airport is 'full'. But that is the classic 'predict and provide' fallacy. We have learned that it doesn't work for roads. If a road is congested and another road is built, it creates more traffic until that road is congested, too. When Heathrow's third runway is 'full' there isn't anywhere to put a fourth, so that game would have to come to an end. Why not bring an end to it now? Any model of growth that depends on ever-increasing air travel is one that is not worth having, in any case. I am not a fan of the net zero carbon target, but I am in favour of reducing greenhouse gas emissions if there are low-cost ways of doing so. One low-cost way would be to avoid increasing air travel. That might have some effect on GDP in the 2040s, but that is a trade-off worth making compared with some of the costs being loaded on energy bills now. We should make that trade-off as economically productive as possible by embracing the free market: as runways around London are a scarce resource, we should charge more for them so as to ensure that resource is allocated most efficiently. Miliband's argument that the environmental rules will ensure that airport expansion is compatible with his climate-change policies is unconvincing, and may well be the basis of a successful legal challenge to Heathrow expansion – because those climate-change targets have been written into law. There is no low-carbon alternative to flying apart from doing less of it. Everyone knows that sustainable aviation fuel is magical thinking: flying planes on vegetable oil is never going to be economic. But it is not just the green case against air travel that makes Heathrow expansion such a bad idea: it is that it is another example of the HS2 fallacy – 'the railways to and from London are full; we must build some more; London must be made even more privileged in the UK economy'. If air travel is good for growth, let us have more of it in other parts of the country. London is a successful city, the best city in the world, partly because of the constraints of the green belt and runway and road space. It does not need any more runways in its back yard.
News.com.au
04-06-2025
- News.com.au
Western Sydney International Airport's new flight paths revealed ahead of 2026 opening
The new flight paths have been finalised for travellers looking to take to the skies from Sydney's new international airport. A slate of changes has been made to the routes, which were revealed on Wednesday, following two years of planning and community consultation. Those living in the Blue Mountains and Wallacia areas are set to benefit from the changes, spared from overnight noise – the authorisation labelled a 'crucial step' to the opening of the Western Sydney International Airport in late 2026. 'We've learnt lessons from other airports, which is why I have imposed a number of additional conditions that will reduce our aircraft noise,' Infrastructure and Transport Minister Catherine King said. 'Can I say that there will be no noise for anyone? I can't say that because that's the very nature of operating an airport is that you have planes, and planes do make noise.' The initial flight paths were revealed in 2023 followed by a final environmental impact statement in 2024. Five changes were made to help minimise aircraft noise following feedback from the community, Ms King said. Four of those were to do with night-time operations. 'Most notably, I'll be issuing a ministerial direction to Airservices Australia to make reciprocal runway operations the default operating mode at night, including the use of a specific noise abatement procedure, when both are safe to do so,' she added. Reciprocal runway operations (RRO) involve planes taking off and landing in the same direction – in this case, the southwest – but at opposite ends of the runway. This aims to minimise the impact of noise on the most heavily populated areas of Western Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Wallacia. Other changes included the removal of the 'Runway 23 Northeast Night (RRO)' flight path and reallocating aircraft to a southeastern flight path, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. A recommendation for the creation of an environmental monitoring program to oversee the impacts of aircraft noise within and adjacent to the Greater Blue Mountains area was also made. The airport is expected to accommodate 10 million passengers each year and 81,000 air traffic movements per year by 2033. The construction of the 3.7km runway has been completed ready for aircraft. Testing is set to begin.
