Court to rule on night flights curbs

A High Court case in May could force transport secretary Ruth Kelly to slash the number of aircraft allowed to arrive at Heathrow before 6am.

The Royal Borough, along with a group of other local authorities in south west London, is seeking a judicial review of the government's failure to tackle errors in its night flight quota system.

On average there are around 16 early morning arrivals each day between 4.30 and 6am.

Wandsworth, Richmond and the Royal Borough challenged the arrangements in 2005 after a Wandsworth acoustician noticed that many of the aircraft had been placed in the wrong noise category.

This misclassification affected the Boeing 747-400 – the main type used by airlines during the night quota period at Heathrow. According to official figures, the total sound energy produced by these aircraft is 75 per cent higher than the government claims.

The numbers of movements allowed at night are determined according to the relative noise weighting of each aircraft. An engine type with a QC2 rating is three decibels noisier than a QC1 and the same amount quieter than a QC4. This latter category is actually banned from flying at night.

Within the overall movements limit, airlines can fly twice as many QC1s as QC2s.

Having admitted the discrepancy the government could have reordered the QC system so that the noisier 747s were correctly placed in the QC4 category. This would have prevented them from being scheduled to fly into Heathrow before 6am.

The airlines could then have substituted quieter aircraft or simply withdrawn these services from the early morning period.
 
The councils will argue that the transport secretary is failing in her duty to protect residents from excessive noise at night.

The court will also be told that the government ignored its own policy directive which requires it to 'bear down on noise'. The councils will say that by perpetuating the under-assessment of aircraft noise and neglecting to set targets for measuring changes in the noise area affected by early morning flights the government acted irrationally.

Cllr David Burbage, leader of the Royal Borough, said:  "We fully support this challenge which seeks to protect our residents from the early morning night flights. The quality of life of people under the flight path has been deteriorating for too long and it is time for this to be reversed, in line with the government's own policy directive."
The court challenge will aim to reveal the lengths ministers will go to so that airlines can continue flying their full quota of planes at a time of day when people under the flight path have a right to be asleep.

Cllr Burbage added: "The current airport expansion plans will bring even more early morning flights in the period just after 6am. At present there are no controls at this time of day. If we win it could mean the government having to set limits for the first time in this shoulder period.

"We are also aiming to achieve some much-needed relief for residents in the 4.30 – 6am period. If by the government's own rules some aircraft types are too noisy to fly, they should be grounded."

The judicial review will be heard by Mr Justice Sullivan and has been set for May 20 – 22.

Apart from Wandsworth, Richmond and the Royal Borough, the other authorities backing the challenge are Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow, Hillingdon and the GLA.

All the councils supporting the judicial review are members of the 2M group which opposes Heathrow expansion and campaigns to protect the quality of life for communities affected by airport operations.