Local authorities near Heathrow claim that the airport's proposed fifth terminal will lead to the construction of a further runway and longer exposure to noise. Nick Warburton reports on a national noise scandal.

For residents who live in the shadow of Britain's busiest airport, the Government's long-awaited decision on Heathrow's controversial fifth terminal is expected with some trepidation. If the project gets the go ahead, the airport's current capacity of 64 million passengers is expected to expand to between 80 and 100 million by 2007. This will make terminal five the third largest airport in Europe, behind Heathrow's existing four terminals and Frankfurt, and add considerably to noise disturbance, which at present causes distress to hundreds of thousands of residents who live under the airport's flight path. Opponents argue that it would also lead to pressures for further expansion and the building of a third runway.

While airborne safety levels may be better than they have ever been, the air traffic control system at Heathrow is already under enormous pressure; a situation which can only worsen with the increase in flights anticipated by a new terminal. The Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists (IPMS), the union representing air traffic controllers has expressed concern about the rise in air traffic volume over the years and claims that there is a shortage of air traffic controllers to deal with the airport's forecasted growth. In addition, a report in the Evening Standard (29 January 2001) noted that overload reports - filed by individual controllers when they feel that they have dealt with too many planes - are on the increase.

Interestingly, the Transport Minister Lord Macdonald has said that a decision on the new terminal is unlikely to be announced until June (after the proposed May general election), illustrating the political sensitivity of the issue.

CURRENT LEGISLATION AND GOVERNMENT POLICY
While there is no national noise legislation to cover UK airports, the three major London airports of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted are designated under Section 78 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982, which gives the Secretary of State powers to "enforce noise standards on aircraft, apply operational controls and restrictions, and give directions to owners of designated airports in relation to noise insulation grant schemes". This provides for specific noise legislation at these three airports to be administered by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR). In practice however, the DETR rarely exercises these powers and BAA plc, which runs the airports, is largely self-regulating.

In addition, the Government's transport white paper A New Deal For Transport, published in July 1998, emphasises integrated public transport and environmental sustainability and points to Heathrow as a key player in a national transport network. This is supported by BAA's pronouncement in March 1999, that if Terminal Five went ahead, it would build a £630m rail, bus and coach programme and the "country's first genuinely inter-modal public transport hub." Heathrow would be placed "at the heart of the rail network" with "direct services to the West Midlands, the West and South West." However, despite assurances made in March 1999 that it would not develop another runway at Heathrow, BAA has now refused to sign a legal agreement against such a development; placing its long-term strategy for Heathrow in the spotlight.

The "New Deal" also made a commitment to give local authorities control over aircraft noise, but as a spokesperson for the DETR pointed out, this only relates to regional airports and does not apply in the case of the three designated airports. In fact, Heathrow's history appears to be one of broken promises and public assurances. When Heathrow's last major development was approved by Inspector Glidewell at the Terminal Four inquiry in 1979, he tried to protect those living around the airport by recommending that the Government impose a limit on flight numbers and place a curfew on night flights. The government responded by setting a limit of 275,000 flights a year, but by the time the Terminal Five inquiry opened in May 1995, flights had increased to 415,000 a year, 50 per cent more than the promised limit.

FIFTH TERMINAL
The complexity of issues surrounding plans for Terminal Five and the level of public opposition to its proposed development resulted in it becoming Britain's longest running public planning inquiry, lasting nearly four years from May 1995 to March 1999. From the inquiry's outset, most West London local authorities opposed the airport's expansion on both a local and strategic level. Led by Surrey County Council, Local Authorities against Heathrow Terminal Five (LAHT5) brought a case at the final hearing in early 1999 with a "raft of objections", including increased congestion, noise and worsening air quality. The two underlying issues however, were the noise of the individual aircraft and the increase in aircraft volume.

During its initial proceedings, BAA had told the inquiry that if the terminal were built, the number of passenger flights would increase by only 36,000 by the year 2013 from 415,000 to 453,000. However, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which is responsible for licensing and re-licensing UK airports, questioned the forecast and said that this figure would be surpassed by the year 2000, long before the terminal had even opened. After hearing evidence from both groups, it was obvious that the "proposal for a fifth terminal wasn't sustainable in any shape or form," says Rob Gibson, strategic pollution officer at the London Borough of Hounslow.

As Mr Gibson explains, noise is already a significant problem in Hounslow, and although the complaints he receives vary widely, "most relate to noise at night". However, because local authorities have no formal powers to deal with noise, there is little he can do to help residents except ask them to contact the DETR directly or write to their local MP to raise the issue in parliament.

If flight numbers do exceed BAA's forecast, as pressure group the Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (HACAN, ClearSkies) and local authorities claim they will, the effects are likely to be devastating. Stanley Abrahams, chief statistician for the CAA, told the inquiry that if flights rose to 500,000 per year with Terminal Five, this would be the equivalent of 91 movements an hour on runways. This could only be achieved by ending runway alternation, which would result in constant aircraft noise from 4am to midnight for hundreds of thousands of residents.

BAA has countered these arguments claiming that it already bans the movement of the noisiest aircraft with a quota classification (QC) rating of eight and above between 11.30pm and 7am and has set an annual limit of 5,800 on the number of aircraft movements between 11.30pm and 6am. A spokesperson for BAA added that the continuing introduction of quieter planes and the coming generation of larger planes will cancel out the rise in flight numbers. That is little consolation to local residents, whose tolerance of existing noise levels is already under considerable strain.

NIGHT FLIGHT BANS
When the DETR last reviewed night flight restrictions in early 1999, it decided not to the change current restrictions, even though there was strong local opposition to a continuance of night flights. In fact, HACAN ClearSkies and local authorities have repeatedly called for a complete ban between 11pm and 6am, as is the case in some other major cities like Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto.

At present, only 19 flights arrive at Heathrow between 11.40pm and 6am, flights which the Government claims are vital to the UK economy. To ban them altogether, the DETR argues, would cost Britain vital business and open it to challenges from Frankfurt and Charles De Gaulle, both of which are vying to steal Heathrow's mantle as Europe's main hub. However, as Colin Stanbury, director of Local Authorities Aircraft Noise Council (LAANC) and consultant to the London Borough of Wandsworth argues, "to date the government has not published a single robust study in support of the airlines' assertion that night flights, particularly those at Heathrow, make a vital and unassailable contribution to the UK economy."
LAHT5 told the T5 inquiry that "if Terminal Five does go ahead, it wants a 10-year phase out of night flights at Heathrow leading to a night time curfew as part of the mitigation process and a definitive statement from the Government that there will be no further expansion of Heathrow including a third runway."

Last May, eight members of HACAN ClearSkies, supported by a consortium of local authorities petitioned the European Court of Human Rights claiming that the existing Heathrow flights regime breaches the European Convention on Human Rights by violating the "right to private life" and respect for their homes. In an unexpected, but welcome move, the Court agreed to hear the case and its decision (due last October) is eagerly awaited. If the Court upholds the case, the DETR may have to consider cutting or banning night flights at Heathrow. "The ruling will force the Government to rethink its whole approach to night flights," says Edward Lister, leader at the London Borough of Wandsworth. The Court's decision to hear the case "means that for the first time the concerns of people whose nightly sleep is interrupted by these unnecessary flights will be taken seriously."

Whatever the Court's decision, the DETR has clearly been rattled by the group's actions and has responded by offering some concessions to appease residents. Last December, former junior minister at the DETR, Chris Mullin announced that the Government would end the westerly preference between midnight and 6am. "I have decided that the current westerly preference should be replaced at night by a weekly rotation between westerly and easterly operations whenever weather conditions permit. "I expect the new arrangements will be introduced in the spring, but full implementation will not be possible until completion of the runway resurfacing work in 2002/3."

Mr Stanbury, however, is not convinced. "The rotation system will only operate between 11.30 and 6am, which is little consolation to residents of West London who will still continue to be exposed to an approaching plane every 90 seconds or so from six in the morning to 11.30 at night." Ian Gilmour, Tory peer in the House of Lords and a resident of Isleworth argues that successive governments are responsible for the controversy surrounding Heathrow: "Britain has long lacked a sensible transport or location policy... In over fifty years, no control has ever been achieved over Heathrow's expansion and no government has treated the appalling environmental consequences with due seriousness."

Opponents at the Terminal Five inquiry argued that the Government should reject a fifth terminal at Heathrow and consider a future airport policy for the Southeast, possibly looking at a new site in the Thames estuary. According to Mr Stanbury, detailed plans for "Marinair" a floating airport in the Thames Estuary were drawn up by a private consortium over ten years ago, but successive governments have instead been committed to maintaining Heathrow's primacy.

If Terminal Five does get the go ahead, Heathrow's primacy will be reinforced as Charles Russell, an air transport consultant for LAHT5 was quick to point out. "Once Heathrow has grown to 100 million passengers a year, it becomes increasingly difficult to make a decision that new runways should go to Stansted or Gatwick and it would be very difficult to stop a third runway eventually being built at Heathrow." Twenty years ago, the renowned public planner Colin Buchanan described the 1943 decision to build London Airport at Heathrow as "the most disastrous planning blunder ever to hit our country." If the Government does approve Terminal Five, hundreds of thousands of residents will be exposed to increasingly unacceptable levels of noise.

Readers may be interested in purchasing a copy of Engineering Noise Control, second edition, by David A. Bies and Colin H Hansen. The material includes discussion on theoretical principles and concepts of noise control and provides a range of practical applications of current noise control technology. Available from the publications department for £45 each. Tel: 020 7827 5882.