Gatwick Airspace Modernisation Review

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[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”.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

The hon. Member is making a very powerful point, and completely correctly. This is something that has been going on for many years. We have been speaking about the Noise Management Board at Gatwick for a very long time. It has completely failed to be anything other than a talking shop in order to placate Bo Redeborn’s complaints at the last review. What we are actually dealing with here is a snake’s wedding above our airspace. It is particularly bad over southern England, but the truth is that it extends all the way to Manchester. This is something I have been fighting for a number of years, so I certainly do not blame the current Minister.

Until the Civil Aviation Authority, NATS and the Department for Transport are willing to address this, we are simply not going to be able to progress. Is it not essential that we look at this in a proper review of the whole of the airspace across southern England and not just exert greater pressure on communities like Cowden in my constituency and no doubt others in the constituency of the hon. Member for Horsham? All we are doing is building a motorway in the sky above people’s homes but without the same protections people would get if a real motorway were to be built alongside them. There will be no compensation, planning or oversight. Is this not the real problem we are facing?

[John Milne]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. I am aware that he has been fighting this cause for a very long time. I certainly agree with his comments and the need for a truly national process on this.

The problem is identified by the CAA as a

“scarce expertise in the industry…leading to inconsistent standards and variable quality”

in airport change process submissions. Unfortunately, the Gatwick review will be completed before this new body is even established. Could we be overestimating the negative impacts of this new route? Are residents exaggerating the damage it might do to their wellbeing? We can confidently say that it is no exaggeration, because the same route has already been experimented with before. Back in 2014 a trial was run called ADNID, following more or less the same line. The impact was immediately disastrous, causing a storm of complaints—so much so that the CEO at the time said that the trial route would never be used again. Yet here we are, 10 years later, and ADNID mark II has arrived.

Although Gatwick claims that these proposals would remove traffic from the existing pathway population swathe, not a single population centre would actually benefit from the change. For the first time, the options being presented to the public consultation bring in thousands of residents who were not previously overflown, contradicting GAL’s own policy of deconfliction. The forceful objections raised in 2014 are being ignored.

Gatwick’s route selection cannot be justified on environmental grounds either. Airspace modernisation is designed to reduce carbon emissions from air travel through more efficient flying. Although that may be achieved as a whole in the FASI-S project, the reduction in emissions is largely achieved by the changes made above 7,000 feet. The emissions and their impact under 7,000 feet are simply not being analysed and nor are the potential harms, which are not even mentioned in stage two of GAL’s FASI-S consultation.

The consultation process as a whole lacks transparency. There are many questions that I believe the public need answers to. No defined methodology for shortlisting flightpath options has been put forward for public consultation. Why is GAL allowed to pick and choose proposed flightpaths without independent review or scrutiny? As stated, the options show little or no variation. It is not three choices—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane]

I gently remind the hon. Member that I grew up under the flight path at Manchester airport, so I remember the BAC One-Elevens, the Tridents and the Concordes. I even saw the space shuttle do a low pass on a jumbo jet. Through modern technology, noise envelopes are reducing considerably.

The hon. Member for Horsham talked about carbon; who knew that if we actually flew our planes in straight lines, we would reduce the carbon emissions from our aviation sector by up to about 10%? That would benefit not just every community but the planet too.

The first step in modernising Gatwick’s airspace affects routes heading south to the airport, as the hon. Member for Horsham said, which have minimal interactions with other airports. To achieve those changes, Gatwick is following the Civil Aviation Authority’s CAP 1616 process, as he mentioned. The process was revised earlier this year to make it fairer and more transparent and to provide an opportunity for comprehensive engagement with local communities and stakeholders who may be affected by airspace changes. It is worth pointing out that that was a key manifesto commitment of ours at the general election. That was right because, given the implications of airspace changes for local communities and the environment, it is necessary that they are subject to robust and transparent procedures.

One of the most complex and pressing aspects of airspace modernisation is the need to redesign the outdated flightpaths into and from our airports, such as those at Gatwick. Gatwick airport participates in a fundamental component of the Department’s airspace modernisation programme: the future airspace strategy implementation programme. FASI is a UK-wide upgrade of terminal airspace, involving 20 airports working in collaboration with the Airspace Change Organising Group and NATS to co-ordinate a more efficient airspace system.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I appreciate the tone with which the Minister is approaching this issue, which he knows has been a matter of great frustration for the past few years that I have been in Parliament. The key to the FASI programme is surely making the efficiency work. I will not comment on the Minister’s understanding of aerodynamics, given his comment about the TARDIS flying, which is a slightly different question—

[Mike Kane]

It is the space-time continuum.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Exactly—it is not quite aerodynamics, and not exactly a flight route.

But this debate does involve flight routes, and there is extra pressure on communities. The Department’s policy, certainly until now—the Minister may have changed it—was to reduce the number of people significantly affected by aircraft noise. Yet going from a flight every 20 minutes to a flight every 100 seconds will apply enormous pressure in a community like Cowden, right next to where I live in west Kent. That is clearly a major change.

I appreciate that noise management has changed in the years since the Minister was growing up near Manchester airport, and I appreciate his points about efficiency—we all welcome efficiency in aircraft routes and, I hope, the greater profit for aircraft users and the resultant cheaper tickets—but will he also recognise that that efficiency needs to be shared with compensation on the ground? If we were to build a motorway next to somebody’s house, we would compensate them, or it would at least require various permissions. This should be no different. It is a motorway in the air.