County Council meeting 24 February 2009 item 17.1

Supporting paper from C Cllr Bernard Lloyd

London Luton Airport – Night Noise Policy

Background

As a result of the Airport Act 1986, Luton Borough council (LBC) formed a Limited Company London Luton Airport Ltd (LLA Ltd) as freeholders of the Airport in April 1987. In August 1998 LLA Ltd then granted a 30 year agreement to a private consortium, known as London Luton Airport Operations Ltd (LLAOL), as the licensed managers and operators.

In 1978 LBC affirmed the importance of monitoring in connection with noise levels, employment and housing and the effect of the highways system and placed on record their willingness to discuss the results of such monitoring with interested bodies and in particular with the London Luton Airport Consultative Committee (LLACC). The arrangements for monitoring were approved in June 1979 and were affirmed in the Borough Council’s 1985 Policy Document “Towards 5 million Passengers”.

The new Luton Local Plan (March 2006) included polices dealing with the growth and development at London Luton Airport. Policy LLA1 supports development at the Airport subject to six provisions, provision (iv) states that the development shall result in an aircraft noise impact that is below the 1999 level. These policies are statutory polices regulating the growth of London Luton Airport to 2011.

Aircraft noise at Luton is monitored continuously at three fixed noise monitors and aircraft noise controls are based on noise contours. The airport has to operate within limits on the area of the day and night contours, set by planning conditions in 1998 when the new terminal was approved The Airport is operating well within its planning limits and this is not surprising as the aircraft now in use are much quieter than those operating in and out of Luton in 1998.

Night Noise Policy

London Luton Airport Operations Ltd has a Night Noise Policy which runs to 31 March 2009 but a review has been delayed to take effect from April 2010 to enable this to take place when a Master Plan has been formulated. The Night Noise Policy does not seek to directly limit the number of movements but imposes financial penalties on any aircraft that exceeds the relevant contour. It is up to LLAOL if and how they amend their night noise policy.

Current Position

The airport is now operating with over 10m passengers per annum. In the quarter July to September there was a total of 32,434 aircraft movements. Of those 24,581 were passenger aircraft.

Since 1984 the number of annual night movements has grown from 4,381 to 10,290 in 2007. These figures are for the night period of 23.00hrs to 06.00 hrs Monday to Saturday and to 07.00 on Sundays as defined by the Night Noise Policy. The total night movements in the July to September quarter equates to an average of 36 movements per night. Comparing figures provided it appears that there are on average a further 11 movements in the “shoulder” period between 06.00 and 0.700 hours.

During the third quarter of 2008 a total of 111 complaints reported night disturbance (35% of all complaints) an increase of 66% on the same quarter in 2007.

There is no doubt that never mind how quiet an aircraft is if it flies over residential properties in the relative stillness of the night it is inevitably going to disturb those trying to sleep particularly with an open bedroom window.

All the other airports around London have restrictions on the total number of night movements. A visit to the Stansted website shows an average of some 30 night movements while the Heathrow website states that it has “on average 16 to 18 planes a night”. Both airports have a much greater throughput of passengers than Luton.

If the Consultative Committee as a first step can persuade the Airport Operators to amend their Night Noise Policy to include a restriction on aircraft movements during the night period in general terms it should then be possible to negotiate an appropriate level of night flights. This could balance the commercial needs of the airport with the environmental needs of the surrounding communities. It may even over time be possible to agree a progressive reduction in aircraft movements at night.

However it is very important that surrounding communities including local authorities encourage the Consultative Committee to engage in discussions with the Airport Operators to achieve progress in limiting the impact of night noise on residents who live around the airport.

DBL/ 19.1.09.