Did you know that noise directly affects people’s health including mental health?
Or that parts of the borough are less than 500 metres from Heathrow’s perimeter fence?
It’s not surprising then that noise is one of our top priorities when it comes to concerns about Heathrow.
Noise mitigation
The government requires Heathrow’s owners, BAA, to come up with ideas to reduce noise pollution. These are known as noise mitigation schemes.
In Hounslow, we’ve had to live with, what we feel is a poor noise mitigation scheme, compared to other similar airports.
Although we recognise that the proposed new scheme is an improvement on the current one, it doesn’t go far enough.
The current noise control schemes attempt to tackle noise whilst planes are in the air but ignore the noise coming from planes on the ground. This needs to be looked at now!
We need improvements such as:
Better insulation, ventilation, windows and roofs, like other similar airports to Heathrow have
Reducing airport noise in our school classrooms
Seeing whether increasing the flight path once planes land can reduce noise
Cranford Agreement
The Cranford Agreement was an informal deal made in 1952 between the government and residents regarding reducing the impact of aircraft noise. In 2009, the government announced it was ending this agreement. Since then, for more than 15,000 residents, noise has got worse.
We feel residents who bought homes in Cranford expecting the agreement to be in place have been short-changed and deserve compensation.
Other concerns
We are not convinced that the powers exist for local councils around Heathrow to challenge airlines that consistently breach noise limits.
We know that aircraft noise impairs the way children’s brains develop. With many of our schools under the flight paths, no child in Hounslow should suffer due to being educated in a school that affected by aircraft noise.
