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Parish Council response to proposed air traffic changesMonday, 28 April 2008 At the last meeting of Hardwick Parish Council, held on Tuesday, 25 March 2008, it had the unusual pleasure of a lot of villagers who came to the Meeting as it had “NATS” as an Agenda item. The Parish Council says the “unusual pleasure”, as normally the Parish Council meetings do not get many, if any, villagers; this can only show the worry and concern that villages have about the proposed changes to flight paths and holding patterns for Luton Airport. Current SituationAt present, Hardwick is over flown by passenger jets at very high levels, some military jets and helicopters at low levels but infrequently, the occasional aircraft from Cambridge Airport and some ‘planes from Duxford. None of these causes any real concern either from noise pollution, the very remote idea of a crash or a reduction in the value of our houses. Proposed ChangesThe Parish Council realises the need to separate air traffic into Stansted and Luton, especially as more and more take offs and landings are happening at these two airports. As air passengers ourselves, it would rather be in a dedicated holding pattern for just one airport, rather than two, as it is obvious to all that this is a much safer way of “stacking” aircraft waiting to land. The Chairman pointed out that the holding pattern did look as if it was a little to the west of Hardwick, but, it was said that the noise pollution would still affect the village. It was also mentioned that there would be a lot more over flying of the village and that would cause more noise pollution than the veillage presently has. It is a great concern to many that they had worked all their lives to buy a house and settle down in a nice village near to Cambridge and those villagers that attended the meeting, and the Parish Councillors, thought that the proposed changes to flight paths and holding patterns would drastically reduce the value of the houses in Hardwick. The Parish Council realise that it is all well and good giving reasons why it does not want to be over flown, or have a holding area near to it, but feel that it should also suggest alternatives so that residents of Hardwick are not looked on as just being “NIMBYist”. If one looks at any map of the area, it can be seen that the area to the north east, over the Fens, is very sparsely populated and the proposed changes would effect a lot less people if the holding area was moved there, or even, as one Councillor has pointed out, why not over the North Sea? To sum upResidents of Hardwick agree that it is a very good idea to separate Luton and Stansted bound aircraft but feel that there are better places to put the holding area which will effect far less people and property values. FinallyIn spite of “NATS” comments in their leaflet, “We are conducting one of the biggest ever consultation exercises in this country…”, it was very clear from the Parish Council meeting, although it did have members of the public attending, that it was readily agreed that “NATS” had not freely advertised these proposed changes. This resulted in the thoughts that they were “steamrolling” the decision through and that this constituted an affront to the democratic process. The Parish Council would very much welcome “NATS” response to these concerns. Comments1 comment(s) so far Page 1 of 1 pages of comments
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Tuesday, 17 June 2008 at 02:23 pm
Cantabrigian
This (below) is taken from the Toft village magazine (May 2008 edition):
"In this edition of The Calendar, you can find details about a consultation leaflet advising on the proposed changes to flight-paths at Luton and other airports (p.5). As currently configured, these are likely to inflict additional racket from arriving and departing planes on the inhabitants of this and near-by villages, so you might feel it's a nice idea for the men from NATS (National Air Traffic Services) to want to consult you before they go ahead.
However, what you might not know is that NATS is refusing to consider any representations objecting to the proposed growth in air travel. It claims that growth is outside its direct control and that its licence requires it “to respond to demand for airspace from aircraft operators”.
NATS has decided against giving the public the opportunity to debate different options for flight paths. It claims that it has considered all the options and come up with the best compromise, on which it is merely inviting comment. It also feels that the general public (that's you) would be unable to understand the “complex air traffic control principles” involved, and so there's little point in asking them. Instead, all views received will be will be "analysed and summarised in a report". All of which is rather confusing to someone who always thought he knew what 'consultation' meant. Buried deep within it's 400-odd page 'consultation paper' NATS mumbles that in some places the number of people disturbed by excess noise will more than double.
If you're unhappy with this prospect, you can sign an on-line petition at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ruralpeace/ Will this help? Probably not, but not bothering will only serve to make the consultation specialists at NATS think they have a clear run, so I reckon it's worth ten seconds of your time."