Row over Bristol Airport night flight plans
08.07.09
Campaigners Stop Bristol Airport Expansion (SBAE), who are fighting expansion plans by Bristol Airport, have suggested that complaints about night-time noise will increase if the development is approved, the Bath Chronicle reports. But the pressure group has been accused of scare mongering by the airport.
The airport has submitted a planning application for a £150 million expansion, designed to cope with a projected increase in the number of passengers using the airport annually from six million to 10 million by 2019. Flights by commercial aircraft would increase from about 60,000 in 2008 to about 86,000 a year – with five or six flights more per hour in the peak hours of 18:00 - 23:00.
SBAE says that there could be up to 21 flights a night on the busiest summer nights, when people's windows are likely to be open and sleep difficult. It says that, although the airport has to keep within a total noise quota, because modern planes are quieter, more of them can be accommodated within the overall ceiling. Over the past few years night flights have averaged out at 3,200 per year, but SBAE says the expansion proposals would allow a rise in night flights to as much as 4,500 annually.
SBAE spokesman Jeremy Birch said: ‘It is the frequency of noise events, rather than a token reduction of a few decibels, that causes the misery of sleep deprivation for residents living under flight paths.‘
But airport spokesman James Gore said no relaxation of the current system which limits night flights had been proposed. He told the newspaper: ‘In fact, an additional night movement cap has been tabled to provide additional reassurance on this issue. There is no headroom within this system for an increase in night flying, nor do we see such an increase as being necessary to the airport's development plans.'
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