Gatwick Airspace Modernisation Review

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[John Milne]

Indeed, as I will come on to, noise is the primary issue at stake here. Gatwick Airport Ltd, referred to as GAL, is a private company. As the operator at Gatwick, it has been tasked with masterminding the airspace review process. It is subject to oversight from a public body, the Civil Aviation Authority. Similarly, Heathrow and other airports across the country are carrying out their own strategy implementation consultation processes for their own areas. The assumption is that each airport knows its own patch better than anyone else, so they are the best qualified to do the job. However, in the case of Gatwick, serious concerns have been raised. Now that we have reached stage three, which is the public consultation phase, many of my constituents and parish councils are concerned. They are worried about the impacts the proposals will have on public health, the objectivity of the process itself and whether the three shortlisted choices actually represent any kind of choice at all.

The proposed changes all involve using a new, previously not overflown flight path. Currently, planes taking off to the west climb for about 6k out before turning south to the coast. But the new route makes a much earlier turn south at about 2k out. The net effect of this change is to separate the western and southern route paths much earlier than currently, which enables a reduction in the interval between flights from two minutes down to 60 seconds. That in turn would enable the airport operator to build significantly more take-off slots into their schedules. The value of that increase in capacity is enormous, potentially hundreds of millions of pounds over the long term.

Why should the change in flight path matter so much to my constituents? Because the sharper turns mean that thousands of flights a year will henceforth directly overfly the villages of Rusper, Warnham and Slinfold at a relatively low height, radically increasing noise pollution, loss of sleep and other negatives.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

As the Member for Mid Sussex, I have been concerned for some time about potential expansion at Gatwick airport, in particular bringing the emergency runway into commercial use. Does my hon. Friend agree that should the decision be approved, the problems he outlines will only be exacerbated?

[John Milne]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Indeed, there is a suspicion that part of the motive behind this is to enable an expansion, which has not been permitted yet.

In this new design, flights would be concentrated over a much narrower band of countryside. The introduction of satellite-based navigation, which is another part of the modernisation process, also has the effect of pushing flights along the same narrow route. GAL started out its review with hundreds of possible designs, but for the public consultation it has narrowed it down to just three. All three make that sharp turn to the south at 2k out. All three add millions to GAL’s potential income. All three create massive noise pollution for Rusper, Warnham and Slinfold. They are not three different options but one and the same.

Is it credible that by fluke all three have exactly the same financial benefit to GAL? It is no wonder that many residents have come to suspect that profit and share price is being put before people’s interests. The absence of an independent member in the design process leaves the outcome open to a perception of bias, at the very least. Perhaps the CAA has recognised this risk, because it proposes to set up a new UK-wide airspace change service that would serve to remedy the problem of

“scarce expertise in the industry”.