Airport campaigners warn of calm before the storm

Birmingham Airport anti-Noise Group

Thursday, 28th September 2006

Airport campaigners warn of 'calm before the storm'

Birmingham International Airport Ltd. (BIA) will unveil its seventh annual Environment and Community Report tomorrow (Friday 29th September 2006) with an informal launch event in the company Board Room, Diamond House. The Environment and Community Report 2005-6 will review how the Airport Company has performed against its own environmental targets over the last twelve months, and set new targets for the coming year.

Birmingham Airport anti-Noise Group (BANG), a local residents' campaign group, welcomes the publication of the Report but warns that much of the good work of recent years will be undone if the airport company continues to pursue the unsustainable expansion programme outlined in the 2005 Draft Master Plan.[1]

Secretary of BANG James Botham said:

"While it would be churlish to deny that BIA has made some real progress over the last decade in reducing its environmental impact, we must point out that last October's Draft Master Plan forecasts environmental deterioration across the board in the next quarter of a century if the airport company goes ahead with the proposed new Second Runway development. In this sense, local residents are currently experiencing the calm before the storm, a brief interlude of improvement in noise, traffic and air quality before BIA embarks on a major infrastructure expansion which will set back the airport company's environmental performance by years."

Mr Botham explained:

"Take aircraft noise, for example. According to the Draft Master Plan, if BIA implement their current expansion plans in full and on schedule, then by 2030 nearly sixty-eight thousand people – more than double the number today – will be exposed to day-time aircraft noise levels recognised by the UK Government and the World Health Organisation as causing significant disturbance; the local 'noise climate' will be no better in 2030 than it was in 1998." [2]

Editor's Notes

[1] Birmingham International Airport's October 2005 Draft Master Plan, 'Towards 2030: Planning a Sustainable Future for Air Transport in the Midlands', presents is a programme of expansion that increases the airport's major environmental impacts over the plan period to 2030. We can expect:

Worsening day and night-time aircraft noise: 'The increase in ATMs [air transport movements] from 2010 through to 2030 leads to an increase in populations exposed to corresponding day and night noise contours' (para.10.12); 'the noise contours are forecast to increase with air traffic growth up to 2030' (para.10.18); and 'The night noise contours reflect a growth in average noise over the period 2010 to 2030' (para.10.15).
Deteriorating air quality: The table on page 92 shows emissions of five air pollutants (nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, hydrocarbons and particulates) from airport-related sources (including the M42) will increase during the plan period and even (except in the case of sulphur dioxide) reversing the downward trend in emissions from 2003-2010 after 2016, when emissions start to rise again.
More road traffic on an over-stretched network: 'Local to the Airport . . . and on key access routes within the West Midlands, the forecast growth of Birmingham International Airport will place increased demands on the surface transport network and systems' (para.9.2), leading to damaging knock-on developments such as the proposed widening of the M42 motorway (SAP4, p82).
Loss of green space and ecologically important sites: 'The land take of designated sites will primarily result in a loss of nationally important grassland communities . . . as well as some woodland . . . and significant lengths of hedgerow. This cumulative effect on designated sites across this area is significant' (para.10.55).

The Draft Master Plan is available on-line at www.bhx.co.uk/Press/220.pdf or call 0121 767 7433 for a paper copy. The final, 'adopted' Master Plan is expected to be published mid-2007. BANG's submission to the 2005-6 Draft Master Plan public consultation, 'Towards a Genuinely Balanced Approach', can be viewed on-line at www.bhamantinoise.org.uk/dmp_2006.htm.

[2] In order to assess the impact of the Draft Master Plan proposals on the local noise climate, BIA commissioned the Civil Aviation Authority's Environmental Research and Consultancy Department (ERCD) to undertake an independent Air Noise Study. The study forecast a growing noise impact resulting from the airport's expansion: the increasing volume of air traffic from 2010 to 2030 is expected to lead to an increase in both the size of the corresponding day and night 'noise contours' and the populations exposed (para.10.12, para.10.15 and para.10.18 of the Draft Master Plan). The population exposed within the daytime 57, 63, 66 and 69 dB LAeq contours, and the night-time 57 and 63 dB LAeq contours, are all forecast to rise between 2010 (under the existing runway system) and 2030 (by which time when the Airport will be operating two runways).

A summary of daytime noise contours for 2030 is included on page 87 of the Draft Master Plan. Under the current proposals it is forecast that 67,950 people will find themselves within the 57 dB LAeq noise contour in 2030. BIA's 2004-5 Environment and Community Report included a graph (page 3) showing how the number of people in the 69, 66, 63, 60 and 57 dB LAeq noise contours had fallen from 1993 to 2002 (a marginal increase was recorded in 2004). The graph shows the population within the 57 dB LAeq contour was around 66,000 in 1998, and around 25,000 in 2004.

The Government considers a noise level of 57dB LAeq to represent the 'onset of significant community annoyance' but recognises that some people are annoyed at lower noise levels. The World Health Organisation (WHO) report 'Guidelines for Community Noise' (1999) recommends that 'to protect the majority of people from being seriously annoyed during the day time the sound pressure level in outdoor living areas should not exceed 55dB LAeq, 16h' and suggests that 'to protect the majority of people from being moderately annoyed during the day time the sound pressure level in outdoor living areas should not exceed 50 dB LAeq, 16h'.

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