ACF joins forces with AEF

16th December, 2021

The Aviation Communities Forum was set up in 2015 following a number of airspace change trials and has always worked very closely with the team at the Aviation Environment Federation, supporting each other on noise and airspace policy issues.

Over recent months we’ve come to the conclusion that there would be mutual advantages in bringing the two organisations together under the AEF, and we’re proposing to do that from 1st January 2022. This initiative will embed the ACF’s noise and airspace work in a more robust membership and governance structure and give it more access to social media capability and potentially funding. For AEF, it will increase the organisation’s capacity on noise and airspace issues, and help to ensure that policy positions are consistently well informed by people’s personal experience of these impacts. We believe there’ll be benefits to the members of both organisations, which in any event overlap very substantially.

Our intention is that the AEF and ACF will combine under the AEF structure with ACF becoming the Airspace and Noise Community Forum of the AEF. The Forum’s role would be as the ACF’s is now, that is to work with communities adversely impacted by the activities of the aviation industry to share issues of common concern and to engage constructively with government, regulators and the industry to address those concerns. Its focus will continue to be on national policy and regulatory matters rather than the noise or airspace environment at any particular airport, and Charles Lloyd will remain as its coordinator. The AEF will continue to support communities on specific local matters where it can, as it does now, and to engage with Government.

The Forum will be open to all AEF and ACF members. Forum members can participate in meetings, and there will be regular feedback and liaison between the Forum and both the AEF staff and its Executive Council to ensure that our messages are well aligned.

We hope that you share our view that AEF and ACF will in future be stronger together.