The Chairman welcomed members of the public and Forum Members to the meeting.

To receive any apologies for absence.

None.

To receive any declarations of interest.

None.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on November 27^th 2018.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meeting held on 27 November 2019 be approved subject to the following amendments:

Independent Parallel Approaches

The Community Protection Principal explained to Members that Heathrow Airport daily needed to operate Tactically Enhanced Measures when incoming aircraft arrived late.

The first independent project proposed by the HCNF would be a comparison of noise levels comparing World Health Organisation guidelines against the results of the Survey of Noise Attitudes. Cllr Hilton stated that the WHO guidelines matched the results of a different study that had been discredited (ANARSE).

Partnership Bodies

Regarding the Local Authority Aircraft Noise Council, Cllr Beer informed Members that this had yet to get going fully following the recent death of the group’s main administrator.

To consider any matters arising.

There were no matters arising to discuss.

To receive an update from Chris Nash/Jenifer Jackson.

Chris Nash, Community Protection Principal stated there were no planning representatives available that could go through the details of the HSPG. However, much of the last meetings’ work continued with methods used in assessing health impacts and there would be a follow up session in March 2019. He added that work on land mass use and how it occurred, such as borrow pits, had been postponed; the river rerouting work was ongoing; and a discussion on climate change workshop was occurring on field discussions around construction impacts.

Councillor Hilton stated the impacts of the third runway were so far reaching. He attended a Heathrow engagement meeting and had a conversation with the Director of Coln Park who had been invited on to the Engagement Board. He was became very cynical in a very short space of time and it was interesting that at such an early stage some significant players were to walk away.

The Chairman stated he went to the HSPG meeting and there were over 60 attendees from South Herts, St Albans, Newham and South Bucks; and they were discussing the use of air space and runways and he was surprised they were there asking questions on air space. They were asking for night flights to begin after 5.30am. the Chairman asked where the flights would go between 4.30am and 5.30am and the answer was that the airlines would need to reschedule them; however, he imagined they would still have a quota of landing aircraft. The Chairman commented when he was at West London University, there was a question of trust with Heathrow so he stood up and asked how can we trust Heathrow when they reneged over the Cranford Agreement. He was told they changed their mind and that they had £10m of work to do and they did not want to do it. The Community Protection Principal stated when discussing night flights, the Airport Commission recommended there should be no flights between 11pm to 6am but, that had been ignored and lost on Heathrow. The Chairman stated the aircraft showed the path flew over RBWM and taxis and that was how they operated so aircraft were landing much earlier. Councillor D. Wilson said he was pleased the Chairman and Councillor Hilton had attended the HSPG but, he was concerned about how attendees were chosen. He added with a third runway, the effects over Maidenhead would be quite great. In 2018, disruption also increased for the Ascot area; he asked if Councillor Coppinger attended as Lead Member for Health. The Chairman stated it appeared Councillor Coppinger and the Head of Planning should be attending the HSPG meetings but, there were there only as observers because RBWM were not considered to be one of the five Boroughs of interest; no Borough’s to the west of Heathrow were on the Community Engagement Boards.

The Community Protection Principal stated the HSPG had evolved but, there was an executive board and a summit. Councillor Coppinger attended the executive board and that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 92.

To receive an update from Chris Nash.

The Community Protection Principal said the Council had complied with the judges direction to slim down the skeleton arguments and the Council had done that. The argument remained intact and was ready for court on 11 March 2019. The Chairman said it was fortunate that Brexit was occupying the news as otherwise Heathrow would be in the news instead.

To receive an update from Chris Nash.

This item was also covered under the Teddington Action Group Presentation item.

To receive a presentation from a Teddington Action Group representative.

Stephen Clark from TAG and No 3^rd Runway Coalition gave a brief presentation on the Heathrow Consultation and the main key points were as follows:

Ø  Air Navigation Guidance 2017 set out the government’s key environmental objectives for aviation. They were:

o   Limit and where possible reduce the number of people in the UK significantly affected by adverse impacts from aircraft noise.

o   Ensure aviation sector made a significant and cost effective contribution towards reducing global emissions.

o   Minimise local air quality emissions and in particular ensure that the UK complies with its international obligations on air quality.

Ø  Noise minimisation had to be prioritised up to 4,000ft (unqualified) and 7,000ft (balanced with carbon).

Ø  What did ‘significant adverse impacts’ mean? ANG states:

o   Total adverse impacts should be limited/reduced, not numbers of people in any particular noise contour.

o   Adverse impacts were health and quality of life costs.

o   Adverse impacts grow as noise levels increase.

Ø  Health impact costs were not nebulous – the fell back on quality of life, created urban blight  and were a cost to the UK’s economy, falling back on the NHS and social services.

Ø  How did the UK compare internationally?

o   UK policy was based on the CAA’s Survey of Noise Attitudes SoNA (2017).

o   WHO 2018 advise was for far lower levels of noise

o   The WHO day threshold was 45 dBLden, roughly the equivalent to circa 43 dBLAeq.

o   That was a vast difference to DfT’s 51 (LOEL) or 54 (significantly annoyed) dBLAeq.

o   3dBLAeq was equivalent to roughly doubling the number of noise events.

Ø  Why did the UK have much poorer standards? The CAA was responsible for promoting aviation growth in the UK. It was funded by aviation and the DfT (it was not impartial). Yet it was given responsibility for undertaking the UK’s aviation noise survey. TAG’s criticisms of SoNA included:

o   Unrepresentative sampling.

o   Defensive approach having regard to unsustainable legacy noise policies

o   Failure to recognise the importance of changes in the use of airspace on community annoyance.

o   The above were fatal flaws as SoNA and webTAG (based around SoNA) were used to evaluate the impact of new runways and airspace changes in the UK.

Ø  Heathrow’s Airspace Consultation – Q6. Factors for designing 3^rd runway flightpaths:

o   The noise envelopes were too low.

o   Overflight – there would be insufficient space between many routes to achieve effective noise separation.

o   Some areas suffer arrivals and departures

o   They all relied on PBN for which there were no successful precedents in the world over densely populated areas.

Ø  The presentation gave visual examples of international experience of concentrated flight paths.

Ø  Heathrow’s Airspace Consultation – Q7. Better use of existing 2 runways:

o   Affected areas will suffer both arrivals and departures with IPAs.

o   IPAs will be at their busiest between 6 and 7am – 25 arrivals in the hour

o   Due to be introduced in 2022 –  ...  view the full minutes text for item 95.

To receive updates regarding key developments from the Heathrow Community Engagement Board, the Local Authority Aircraft Noise Council, and the Heathrow Community Noise Forum.

To include an update on the Question Time event hosted by the Heathrow Community Engagement Board on January 23^rd.

Councillor Beer stated the Community Engagement Board now had the former Environmental Officer from a London Borough who was a strong pivot on environmental matters and would be the new administrator. The Partnership had a meeting in January 2019 that went into detail on policy.

The Community Engagement Board were very concerned as it was meant to be independent and the Chairman had no knowledge of aviation and the last meeting did not change anything. It was meant to be an independent commission in aircraft noise. Traffic stats for Heathrow were right at the limit at 400,000. A technical director was involved in assisting the legal challenge and he had been appraised on technical issues. A resident stated it was difficult to decipher arrivals and departures with huge graphics on small tables, Heathrow tried to roll statutory functions of one board into the Community Engagement Board. Councillor Beer stated he addressed the meeting held at Langley highlighting those problems with the negatives not being explained. Councillor Hilton said the Chairman of the Community Engagement Board should be holding Heathrow to account; Heathrow would fight as much as they could for the interests of shareholders there had to be an organisation that pushed back.

The Chairman said RBWM was six miles from Heathrow and at that point, the pilot should be lined up with landing gear down. Some aircraft were getting lower due to meteorological events so needed more power to counter that which caused more noise. Cloud also created more noise and it all depended on the size of the aircraft. Councillor Hilton stated residents were told under PBN altitudes could also be set and aircraft could be managed in a different way than today. There could be significant opportunity if used the right way to make the impact less. There would be at least 54% more flights with a third runway.

Councillor Beer stated one thing he had noticed through all documentation was that Heathrow stated everything was subject to economic viability so, they would do things if it did not cost anything but, they would not do things if it did cost money.

Future meeting dates will be confirmed at the meeting of Full Council on Tuesday February 26^th.

It was noted that the schedule of meetings for the next municipal year had not yet been released.