Heathrow news, risk around airports, noise in the countryside and a new AEF project

26th January, 2009

The big story in the last fortnight has been the Heathrow announcement. While the decision’s a disappointing one for us, in some ways it’s simply a re-statement of Government policy: that Heathrow may expand within environmental constraints. And some of the new constraints announced are actually quite exacting. The challenge now will be in holding the Government to its commitments.

Meanwhile, we’ve been continuing our work on third party risk, corresponding with the Department for Transport and discussing with our planning advisor how risk around airports could be better reflected in planning policy.

Several recent inquiries have related to noise in rural locations from ‘general aviation’ – helicopter and leisure flights. Building relationships and reaching compromises are generally essential in resolving these types of problems and we’ve uploaded the CAA’s best practice guidance for operators of general aviation aerodromes, which AEF helped to draft, to our General Aviation section.

Finally, we’ve recruited a new intern. Priya will be working on building a database of relevant parliamentary debate and will be conducting a literature review for a new project analysing the environmental impacts of different transport modes.