Heathrow consultation
Thursday evening I went to the consultation in Hammersmith Town Hall with a friend who lives in Hammersmith. It was more convenient than going to Roehampton University next week - Ravi Govindia is correct in his comment- and my friend noted that the timings are not helpful for people who, like her, work full time.I sat in one of the sound booths mentioned in the item on the website front page. I found it cramped and uncomfortable. You have to wear two headsets, one to enable you to see to choose a location, height and type of plane, and the other for you to hear the noise it makes. I selected the A320, but soon abandoned the exercise. I hear the damn thing every day, so why bother.There seems to be some confusion with the exercise. We were repeatedly told by Heathrow staff that it is nothing to do with the third runway and expansion, but the questionnaire form indicates that it is. (freepost envelope provided.)They claim to be asking for views on future flight paths, but have nothing definite to reveal, so you can't really answer the question which probably concerns most people: will more planes be flying over me, and when? A lot of talk about "envelopes".There was mention of the westerly preference, perhaps abandoning this so that Putney could get take-offs as well as arrivals. I don't know if these would be instead of some landings or in addition, and I do not know how loud departing aircraft would be over us. It is all vague.The lack the courage to spell out the extent of the reduction in respite, but we know it will be substantial as this was hidden on page 183 of the Davies report.I'm always wary of Heathrow questionnaires. Each question has the options: agree, disagree, don't know. It's hard to "know" when the information is so imprecise. What I do know is that I'm utterly opposed to more planes, more noise, and that as long as May is in Downing St and Failing Graying at the DfT, we're stuffed. We're already in for another 25,000 aircraft movements a year, which amounts to about 68 a day, I guess, reducing our respite by nearly two hours.
Elizabeth Balsom ● 2847d6 Comments ● 2841d