Villagers challenge Luton Airport
08.09.11
Luton Airport has been accused of treating St Albans villagers with disdain over complaints about a significant increase in noise from planes, the Herts Advertiser reports. A campaign to challenge recent changes in the direction and number of aircraft flying over Redbourn, Flamstead and elsewhere in the St Albans district is gathering pace as fed-up residents demand answers from the hub.
A spokeswoman for Luton said it is conducting a trial with the independent Luton Airport Consultative Committee to see if encouraging aircraft to maintain a central line and avoid overflying the most densely populated areas would lessen the impact of aircraft noise on local communities. The spokeswoman added: ‘We have been conducting this trial in conjunction with easyJet. We are currently three months into the six month trial.’
She said the airport had not altered the number of aircraft on the westerly departures route towards Redbourn and Flamstead, nor had it changed the altitude as all planes taking off had to adhere to certain height limits.
The airport had sent a mobile monitoring unit out to locations in St Albans to measure noise levels. She explained that it was likely people in the district were more aware of aircraft because of a combination of the airport’s summer flight programme and a change of weather conditions. Also, because of changes to aircraft design and technology, the operation and handling of planes had changed and the turns they were able to make at take off speeds were wider than they had been in previous years.
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