PETITION – Luton Airport should significantly reduce night flights: Luton Airport is as close to nearby homes as London City, flies much bigger planes, and has more people in its noise footprint. Yet it has no night noise curfew as at City, and no regulation on its night flights. Now they plan to DOUBLE night flights between 10pm and midnight. Join us in petitioning for a significant reduction in night flights at Luton Airport instead. NIGHT NOISE DAMAGES HEALTH!
To sign our petition against increased night flights at Luton Airport click here

Luton Airport is “in denial” of its own plans for flights at night! Despite clear information in its planning application proving that there would be a doubling of flights between 10pm and midnight, Luton Airport is saying this is Untrue. Click here for the story

Fantastic coverage of anti night flights rally in “Luton Today”! Dozens of protestors gathered on the steps of Luton Town Hall to hand in a petition of 1,000 signatures calling for planning controls over night flights – and to make some noise of their own. Click here for the full story and a great video clip

There is still time to make a difference! Because of the magnitude of the proposed airport expansion project and the number of documents involved, the Luton Borough Council planning team is still accepting your comments and objections. Click here for more information

New flight trial brings no respite to South Luton! The people of Luton are in the front line of the battle against aircraft noise – not just because they get the planes departing over their heads, but because it’s they who need to influence Luton Borough Council to get night flight controls in place. Click here for the full story

50% more night flights altogether? Luton Airport is planning to increase the number of flights at night by 50%. Data from the planning application and annual reports indicates that there could be 80 flights a night during busy months. And the noise of night-time arrivals is not being assessed against noise thresholds. Click here for story

Noise mitigations affect less than 1% of flights! The noise mitigation plans put forward by Luton Airport in its Master Plan, and included in its planning application, would only affect less than 1% of flights according to their own planning consultants. This demonstrates how hollow the commitments to be a good neighbour really are. Click here for full story

Twice as many people affected! The noise footprint from Luton Airport would expand to affect almost twice as many people by 2028 as it does now, according to figures in the recently released planning application. Click here for full story

Is Eric in a Pickle? Local MPs and experts agree that the expansion plans at Luton Airport constitute a Nationally Significant Instrastructure Project. The Airport operators say it is a critical part of the national infrastructure. Yet Eric Pickles is resisting calls to call it in for public review. Click here for full story and click to sign the e-petition for call-in

Majority say NO! 73% of the public who responded to the Luton Airport expansion consultation said that they were OPPOSED. Yet the Airport press release claims 65% in favour. That is why it is vital for all those who are concerned about the effects of this expansion to submit an objection. Click here for guidance

Mission statement: To oppose proposals to double the capacity of Luton Airport, and to fight on behalf of neighbouring communities for effective actions to reduce aircraft noise and pollution rather than allowing them just to continue to increase unchecked. Enough is enough!

HALE is campaigning against plans to double the capacity of Luton Airport. Why? – Luton is effectively a City airport and its noise needs to be regulated – there are no limits on night flights and local people have had enough – local road and rail services are already congested enough as it is – 73% of the public OPPOSED the plan during the public consultation.

Click here for help if you want to object >> Submitting objections

Reasons to oppose the expansion of Luton Airport:

1) Luton Airport is in the wrong place for massive expansion:

there are big towns north, south and east of the airport
the airport is on a hill with no direct rail connection
flights routinely pass right over communities all around the airport
local roads and train services are already congested
see Growing pains and EIA poser

2) Noise and night-flights are a major problem:

the mix of flights from Luton is getting noisier year-on-year
Luton Airport has very lax night-flight restrictions
noisy cargo planes wake people at night and cause stress
at peak times planes would be going over every 90 seconds
see Noise-gate and Flying tonite

3) The extra traffic would add to road and rail congestion:

they have not modelled the impact on road traffic or trains
M1 junction 10 is already a serious bottleneck
A505, A1081, A5, Lower Luton Road would see increased traffic
the trains were extended to 12 coaches to meet existing demand
see Queues ahead

4) Information on jobs is misleading:

between 2004-9, 1.6 million extra passengers yet 1000 fewer jobs
airport expansion jobs numbers are generally overstated
jobs look likely to be lost in cargo and commercial aviation
more holiday flights causes British jobs to be exported overseas
see Jobs fair ?

5) Consultation information was misleading or incomplete:

proposals claim planes are getting quieter – in fact they are getting noisier
they did not tell people about the planned extra night flights
they cannot say which types of planes will be in the mix
they did not specify planned changes to flight paths
see Known unknowns and Fact or fiction ? and Route out

6) Expansion consultation information hides the damaging effects:

they propose up to an additonal 160 planes a day over local comunities
they propose an additional 16,000 passengers a day on road and rail
they propose even larger, heavier and therefore noisier planes
they will be adding 50% more night flights and start flights earlier
see Impacts

7) The proposed expansion plans are fundamentally unsustainable:

Bruntland report 1987: do not compromise tomorrow for today
World Bank report 1991: do not pollute faster than you can recover
Better Quality of Life 1999: use natural resources prudently
60% more planes means 60% more pollution and carbon footprint

Spread the word to other people concerned about aircraft noise: see Contact others

Follow us on Twitter at @ourhale: click HALE feed

Please add your comments to our stories. To add a comment, click on the speech bubble by the top of a story or fill in the reply form at the end. You can use initials for your name if you wish. Click at the end of a story to see what others are thinking.

More background: Luton Borough Council wants to make more money out of Luton Airport. In February 2012 they announced a consultation on a Luton Airport expansion plan which would involve terminating the current concession held by the operators LLAOL. In March LLAOL announced their own rival plan to expand the capacity and increase flights from 9.5million passengers per year to 16 million over 15 years. In September both parties combined to launch a new consultation on expansion to carry 18 million passengers per year by 2030.

Significant expansion of Luton Airport wholly inappropriate given that the airport is so close to large urban areas, on top of a hill, and surrounded by rural towns and villages. Modern airports in Britain would be located with clear runs to the east and west since the prevailing winds are from the west. Luton has Stevenage directly to the west of it, and is constrained by the Heathrow stack to the south east.

Luton Airport already causes serious noise and pollution over populated areas, as well as areas of natural beauty. Flights from Luton are getting noisier each year despite the myth that modern planes are quieter - the fact is that the fleets are travelling further and so are getting heavier and hence louder.

Transport routes to and from the airport by road and rail are already congested at busy times and would be unable to cope with double the airport traffic. M1 junction 10 is a bottleneck between the widened carriageway to the south and hard shoulder running to the north. Other local roads like A505, A5, A1081, B653 are congested as it is.

The airspace around Luton is hemmed in by the proximity of Heathrow airspace and the Bovingdon stack, so flights to and from Luton Airport have to weave under and through the Heathrow traffic, which means they cannot climb to altitude quickly and are hence noisy, polluting and carbon-inefficient.

The airport has not been a good neighbour: planes do not follow the prescribed tracks accurately and – particularly at night – overfly towns and villages as a short-cut which the airport operator permits them to get away with.

Because Luton Airport is not regulated in the same way as other airports around London, there are no restrictions on its night flights in particular. The latest plans show a 50% increase in night flights from 2011 to 2028.

HALE is a non-parochial, apolitical and inclusive campaign for the benefit of North Hertfordshire towns and villages, as well as affected areas in Bedfordshire. We are professional, objective, rational and determined.

What can you do? Object to the expansion plans – input is still being accepted.
See our list of objections and guidance on how to object, starting at Objections

Please contribute by clicking on the speech bubbles by our stories, and posting comments which indicate your experiences of the airport, your objections and potential lines of attack. If you have specialist knowledge and can provide more detailed input we would love to hear from you.

You can contact us on the email address at the top of this page, or by posting replies to our articles. Together we can stand against these proposals.

The HALE team.

The PR machine at Luton Airport is now in a complete spin over night flights, according to local campaigners. The Airport is now strenuously denying the flight projections contained in its own planning application.

In a new “Fact” Sheet described as “a fully referenced narrative on noise which provides complete and transparent answers to the salient questions based on factual data compiled by aviation experts and noise technicians” Luton Airport denies that it is planning to double the number of flights between 10pm and midnight, saying recent press statements are “untrue”.

However, graphs in its own planning application, compiled by independent aviation experts and noise consultants Bickerdike Allen, clearly show the number of flights in the 10pm to midnight time slot set to rise from 17 to 35 on average – ie there WOULD be a doubling of flights in that period, as shown below with annotations:

Similarly, the “Fact” Sheet claims that the Airport will only be adding two additional flights between 5am and 6am on a busy summer day, whereas its planning application clearly shows that on average they plan to add SIX extra flights between 5am and 6am.

The “Fact” Sheet was issued to coincide with the handing-in to Luton Town Hall of a 1,000-signature petition signed by residents of Luton, Stevenage, St Albans, Hemel Hempstead, Harpenden and villages all around Luton Airport protesting against the proposed increases in night flights and the resultant reduction of “night” around Luton to just 5 hours. The petition calls for Luton Borough Council to apply planning controls to limit the number of night flights from Luton Airport to 2011 levels, and the campaign is supported by many people who live in Luton itself.

Speaking for NoMoreNightFlights.com the campaign alliance behind Thursday’s rally, Andrew Lambourne said “Luton Airport is in complete denial about its devastating plans for night flights. Their own data shows a planned increase from 17 to 35 flights on average between 10pm and midnight, yet they are saying it is untrue to call this a doubling. Well by anybody else’s arithmetic that IS a doubling of flights between 10pm and midnight – that is what the planning application says. Are they now withdrawing that aspect of their plans? They cannot have it both ways.”

The row comes at a time of increased focus nationally on expansion plans for airports all around London, and significant concerns are being raised about the impacts on public health and basic human rights. The World Health Organisation states in relation to night noise “40 to 55 dB: Adverse health effects are observed among the exposed population. Many people have to adapt their lives to cope with the noise at night. Vulnerable groups are more severely affected.” Similarly the Environmental Research and Consultancy Department of the CAA states “It is especially important to limit noise during the earlier part of the night when people are falling asleep” and “just one additional awakening per night induced by aircraft noise has an adverse effect on people’s health and wellbeing.” Yet Luton Airport is planning to move in exactly the opposite direction.

“The Airport MD claims there will be massive economic benefit from expanding Luton Airport – 5,100 more jobs, and a more vibrant local economy.” continued Andrew Lambourne. “If we cannot trust what they say about night flights, we cannot trust what they say about jobs – experts say these jobs figures are probably overstated by a factor of 5, which would be a cruel hoax on local people. Given the proposed doubling of passenger numbers and night flights, a tired workforce fighting its way along ever-more congested local roads is not going to benefit anybody’s economy.”

HALE

Hertfordshire Against Luton Expansion

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