Living in the vicinity of Luton Airport, particularly under the flight paths, is often misery. For many people, a simple walk in the park or an afternoon in the garden is ruined by deafening aircraft taking off or arriving every few minutes. And the phrase “close to Luton Airport” doesn’t just mean within the boundaries of Luton. Surrounding villages of Breachwood Green, Pepperstock, Slip End, South Luton and Caddington, Flamstead and Markyate all suffer hugely.
That’s the situation right now. Yet London Luton Airport (LLAL) is proposing to double its capacity to 38 million passengers.
Our fellow campaigners, LADACAN say:
“The noise misery around the airport has increased tremendously over the past 5 years, with flights on the busiest westerly departure route up 87%, more than twice as many night flights, concentrated low-level noise and larger, noisier planes in the fleet mix.”
Source: http://www.ladacan.org
And that’s the situation now, before the massive increase to 38 million passengers and another 100,000 flights a year.
Luton Borough Council itself has a document on its website quoting the World Health Organisation: “exposure to excessive noise can cause serious harm to humans. It can interfere with people’s daily activities at school, work, home and during leisure time. It can disturb sleep, cause cardiovascular and psychophysiological effects, reduce performance and provoke annoyance, plus responses and changes in social behaviour”.
And that’s the situation now. Right now, noise pollution – in Luton and surrounding villages – is causing serious physical and psychological harm.
Yet in the summer of 2017, Luton Airport itself said that it had already exceeded its own targets for night time noise.
This is what their website says:- “Growing demand has meant our economic contribution to the local area has been accelerated. It has also seen us marginally exceed our night time noise contour by 1.5km². day to the night”
And that’s the situation now, with London Luton Airport freely admitting it has exceeded its own night time “noise contour”. Imagine what the situation will be, if the airport is allowed to double its capacity!
We all know that aircraft take-off and landing creates considerable noise, but ground noise associated with engine start-ups and runway taxi-ing is equally intrusive. And of course, aircraft noise is not the only source of noise pollution associated with the airport.
Already, cars and other vehicles going to and from the airport cause considerable noise pollution. A simple web search for “traffic and Luton airport” brings up dozens of news reports describing incidents of traffic chaos over the last few months.
And that’s the situation now. Constant noise pollution from airport-related traffic, and regular incidents of traffic chaos. How much worse will this become, if passenger numbers increase to 38 million?
As we know, major construction of any kind causes considerable noise pollution during the works. London Luton Airport Ltd are proposing to build – amongst other things – a second terminal on Wigmore Park. Not only will this destroy the buffer zone between the airport and local residents, but it will also necessitate piling work; excavation; construction vehicles going to and from the site; and contractors’ equipment all using local roads, day and night.
Is this what we want for the future of Wigmore?
Here are some links to friends who are also campaigning on the local issue of airport noise pollution:
St Albans Quieter Skies (STAQS) – staqs.group@gmail.com
Save our Skies St Albans – info@saveourskies.co.uk
Harpenden Sky – www.harpendensky.com
LADACAN – http://www.ladacan.org