National Air traffic Services (NATS) are proposing major changes to the use of air space over the south east of the England affecting flight paths in and out of the various commercial airports. They have published a public consultation document entitled ‘Terminal Control North (TCN) Airspace Change Proposal’ detailing their proposals and are seeking feedback prior to submitting it to the Civil Aviation Authority for approval. The consultation period runs from 21^st February until 22^nd May 2008.

The full consultation document can be viewed on the NATS website www.consultation.nats.co.uk . This is a very long and complex document, but it gives a great deal of detail explaining why the changes are considered necessary, the philosophy used in deciding the new routes and of course detailed maps of the existing flight paths and the proposed ones. A feedback form is available on the website to enable the public to register their views.

For those people who don’t want to spend a great amount of time wading through the whole consultation document, Edlesborough Parish Council has endeavoured to explain below, the probable consequences of the proposals on the Parish of Edlesborough.

The main source of aircraft noise disturbance in the Parish is from planes operating in and out of Luton Airport, although some additional disturbance comes from departing Heathrow traffic using one particular flight path.

The runway at Luton runs nominally east/west such that during westerly operations (approximately 70% of the time), planes take off to the west and land from the east. Conversely during easterly operations, planes take off to the east and land from the west.

Luton has four departure routes

Currently during westerly operations, the Parish is only over flown by aircraft using the northerly departure route (Olney 1B), but during easterly operations we are over flown by all aircraft during their final approach to Luton.

This would suggest that we suffer more during easterly operations when 100% of arriving Luton traffic passes overhead, compared with westerly operations when only 8% of departing traffic over flies us. However, since arriving aircraft are much less noisy than departing aircraft, the level of disturbance is probably perceived by most residents as greater during westerly operations.

The other significant source of aircraft noise disturbance in the Parish is also during westerly operations from planes departing from Heathrow using the northerly departure route. Although we are some distance from Heathrow, planes on that particular route have to pass either over or under the incoming stack at Bovingdon. Since the larger, heavier planes cannot climb sufficiently rapidly to pass over the stack, they have keep to below 6,000ft when the stack is full until they are clear of it at Wendover. This means that these aircraft, which are the noisiest of all, only start their full power climb to normal cruising altitude at Wendover. Although we are not directly under the centre line of the flight path (that passes over Aston Clinton and Wing), we are sufficiently close for the noise to be intrusive.

Both the departure route to the south east and the one to the east are to be revised such that instead of looping south, they would loop north with their centre lines passing directly over Northall. This of course will mean that instead of 8% of departing Luton traffic passing overhead during westerly operations, we will have 47%, i.e. almost six times as much.

There are no changes proposed for the Heathrow northerly departure route or the location of the Bovingdon stack.

So the bottom line is that the Parish will get no relief whatsoever regarding incoming Luton planes during easterly operations, or from Heathrow departing aircraft during westerly operations. Worst of all, we would get a six fold increase in planes departing from Luton over flying the Parish. Furthermore, Luton traffic is expected to grow by another 58% by 2014, which would mean a nine or ten fold increase on the number of departing aircraft over flying the Parish compared with today’s figure.

Although we are directly beneath the centre line of the existing Olney 1B theoretical flight path, many aircraft are vectored away from the flight path on a more direct heading to their ultimate destination, once they reach an altitude of 3,000 or 4,000 ft. Since the short haul aircraft that predominate at Luton have fairly rapid climb rates, this means that a large proportion of planes leave the flight path before they reach us and consequently do not fly directly overhead. That is why the disturbance that we experience from Olney 1B flights is not as bad as was originally feared.

Hopefully the same thing would happen with the new flight paths, especially as the additional east bound flights would be anxious to turn as soon as permissible to avoid travelling any further west than necessary. Nevertheless, we would still be experiencing a six fold increase on present day levels, increasing to a ten fold one by 2014.

Edlesborough Parish Council will be making a formal response to the proposal in due course, which will be published on this website.

If individual parishioners wish to express their views regarding any of the proposals contained in the consultation document, the Parish Council would recommend that you use the official feedback form available from the NATS website. We would however appreciate a copy also being sent to the Parish Council (Mrs Lin Sargeant: parish.council.clerk@edlesborough.gov.uk ) that we can consider your comments when compiling our response.

Edlesborough Parish Council    24th February 2008

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