 Abbots Langley Liberal Democrat Councillor Matthew Bedford writes: Many residents may have seen that National Air Traffic Control (NATS) is consulting about new flight paths across a large section of southern England. There are a number of changes but one in particular, will have a major impact on communities in Three Rivers, and in particular Abbots Langley.
Flights leaving Heathrow’s westerly runway heading towards the North East, which currently fly over Watford, will be moved north so that the “centreline” of the flight path passes over Langleybury Lane, Gallows Hill, Abbots Road then Toms Lane and Bedmond. Of course, not all flights follow the “centreline” exactly, so we can in the future expect far more flights over all of Abbots Langley than we have now. There are around 150 flights every day leaving Heathrow towards the north east – and the westerly runway is used roughly 70% of the time – on average 5 days per week. Heathrow operates 364 days per year, so that’s around 38,000 jets a year passing over these residential areas – more than eight every hour from 6am to 11pm! Unlike the current flight path over Watford, these flights will all be climbing as they pass over the area, so using much more power and creating much more noise. At 5000-6000 feet (the expected height over Abbots Langley), the noise for typical jets is equated in the document to cars at 40mph 23 feet away – so the equivalent of a busy road outside your house. The biggest jumbo jets (around 10% of the total) will be significantly louder. Of course the noise isn’t constant so it fades into the background – planes will be coming over every 5 or 10 minutes.
There could be an alternative.
In the consultation document, page H51 shows that an alternative route for this flight path was considered, further to the west, avoiding all residential areas (see broken black line on map). It was rejected because that route also went further north, over Hemel Hempstead and St Albans. The current NATS proposal is shown in red on the map. Councillor Bedford would suggest that the best route would be to follow a line similar to the optional route up to a point south- east of Bovingdon; and then turn east to pass south of Hemel Hempstead and rejoin the proposed route south of St Albans (blue line on map). This alternative does not appear to have been considered by NATS. This route avoids all large residential areas and would significantly reduce the number of people directly affected by the centreline – which NATS say is one of their main criteria for choosing routes.
What can we do? There is currently a consultation underway. It is vital that if you are affected by these changes, you register your opposition. The consultation runs until 22nd May. Please make sure you have your say!
2. Write to NATS. TCN Consultation, NATS, Freepost NAT22750, Reading, RG1 4BR. If you feel strongly, we would suggest that you do this as well as registering opposition on the website, because the website does not the give the ability to make extended comments.
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