Local developments

Heathrow Third Runway - March 2018

Heathrow Airport Third Runway - Public Consultation

There has been a Heathrow Extension road-show travelling around London and the home counties, promoting the recent public consultation. There have been two concurrent consultations, both triggered by the planned third runway, “Airport Expansion” and “Airspace Principles”. Whilst our members are likely to hold a range of opinions about the third runway and its impacts, this article is limited to considering whether any potential changes to the existing flight paths, in and out of Heathrow may affect Raynes Park. Hence, the following focuses on the information concerning the Airspace Principles consultation.

Much information is available at https://www.heathrowconsultation.com/ . The consultation closed on 28 March 2018.

The public opinions being sought are to do with establishing airspace design principles. For example,

· How take-off routes might be modified (e.g. over green space or urban areas)
· Options for the resulting noise impact being spread or concentrated.
· The effect alternative routes might have on emissions
· Making use of new aircraft and traffic control technology
· Night flights

Because these are “design principles” rather than “design development”, it seems premature at this stage to expect information to be available about how flight paths might be affected by the third runway.

However, the information states that Heathrow Air Traffic Control takes over from NATS (formerly National Air Traffic Services) at 11,000 ft. So Heathrow is responsible for take-offs and landings and NATS for the incoming “stacks”.

There is information available on the Heathrow website on existing flight paths. This is summarised below, together with conclusions on the how third runway might affect Raynes Park.

Arrivals stacks.

There are four arrivals stacks which are the responsibility of NATS, two to the north of London and two to the south. These have remained in the same locations since they were first started in the 1960’s. Although Heathrow controls the arrivals routes from the bottom of each stack, the landing routes into Heathrow are therefore determined by the location of the NATS stacks.

RPWBRA members have probably observed planes travelling in a northerly direction to the east of Raynes Park, before turning for their final approach to Heathrow. This is because Raynes Park is located just to the west of the point where the landing routes converge from the bottoms of the two southern stacks, located over Ockham and Biggin.

Westwards take-off routes.

The take-off corridors towards the west from Heathrow do not affect Raynes Park.

Eastwards take-off routes.

Raynes Park is on the southern edge of the eastward take-off corridor for planes heading towards destinations to the southeast. Wimbledon Village and Wimbledon Common are thus closer to this route than Raynes Park.

Heathrow publishes a calendar of when the Eastwards and Westwards corridors are scheduled to be used.

Conclusions

With the advent of the third runway, the impact of aircraft noise on Raynes Park might not change significantly, unless either:

· The locations of the NATS stacks were to be altered in some way. (However, this is not the subject of the current consultation), or