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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 53-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS committee (NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS SUB-COMMITTEE)
AIR TRANSPORT SERVICES IN NORTHERN IRELAND
Monday 29 November 2004 Conference Suite, Belfast City Airport
MR HERBERT L McCRACKEN, MR ROBERT BARNETT, MR DAVID BABINGTON and MR ROGER WATTS Evidence heard in Public Questions 49 - 100
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Northern Ireland Affairs Sub-Committee on Monday 29 November 2004 Members present Mr Tony Clarke, in the Chair Mr Adrian Bailey Mr Roy Beggs Mr Stephen Hepburn Mr Eddie McGrady Mr Stephen Pound The Rev Martin Smyth Mark Tami ________________ Memoranda submitted by Cultra Residents' Association and Kinnegar Residents' Action Group
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Herbert L McCracken, Committee Member, and Mr Robert Barnett, Committee Member, Cultra Residents' Association; Mr David Babington, Secretary, and Mr Roger Watts, Committee Member, Kinnegar Residents' Action Group, examined. Q49 Chairman: Thank you all for coming. Thank you for coming to give evidence to the Committee. By way of general introduction, the Committee is tasked with looking at the development capacity at all of the existing airports. We want to look at issues such as the effectiveness of the Route Development Fund and we want to look at the impact of wider air transport UK issues on Belfast and Northern Ireland in general. We have got a pretty wide brief. One of the things that we are very keen to do is to make sure that from the start we take on the views not just of those who operate within the industry but those who are affected by the industry. You are very welcome as representatives of community groups and we very much look forward to what you have got to tell us. I know that you are a mixed group from Cultra and Kinnegar. Perhaps when you first speak, if you could inform us which group you are from, that would help our shorthand writer who is at the end. Mr Watts: Would it help if I made the introductions now, Chairman? Q50 Chairman: That would be very helpful, thank you. Mr Watts: I am finding it very hard to pick you up, the air conditioning is right over my head. I cannot speak for my colleagues. Mr McCracken: I am having difficulty too. Q51 Chairman: We will speak up until such time as we can turn the air conditioning off. It should be going off now. If I raise my voice, is that better? Mr Watts: Yes, that is better. David Babington and I are from the Kinnegar Residents' Action Group. Kinnegar is the area of Holywood which is overflown by the flight route directly from aircraft taking off towards the Belfast Lough side of the airport. Robert Barnett and Mr McCracken are members of the Cultra Residents' Group. Q52 Chairman: Let me start with a general question. In the submissions to us it was suggested that any growth at City Airport will be "a risk to public health" and the World Health Organisation guidelines were mentioned. There was a comment that the noise levels experienced would be in excess of those guidelines. Could you elaborate a little bit more on how you feel the current noise levels diverge from those set out in the WHO guidelines? Mr Barnett: We are not noise experts around this table, so we commissioned a study which we will put in as evidence - we only have one copy with us - to take some actual measurements around the airport. This was because we felt that the computer derived figures, which are what are normally used, were not what was originally intended and not what should have been created. We have got an extract of that study for you. I am afraid we have not got the scientist who did it with us but you will see from that that the noise levels in Kinnegar, for example, according to these tests, are outside the levels that were set down in the adoption statement in 1991. They are approximately twice as high as the figures produced by the airport are suggesting. Experts differ, as you will know, and this is a possibility but we have here figures showing that they are well outside the amounts that the airport thinks they are and they are outside the planning limitations. Q53 Chairman: Just for clarity, Mr Barnett, the document that you are have handed round, if I was to turn to table 7.2 on page 164 ---- Mr Barnett: Yes, you would see there ---- Q54 Chairman: Could you just run through those in terms of the three columns so that Members can familiarise themselves with the scale of the problem? Mr Barnett: Again, I am not an expert in this but the left-hand column is the measured levels, the middle column is the planning permission levels and the right-hand column is the computer modelled levels. We are on average noise over 16 hours here. Q55 Chairman: I suppose this would answer the other point that you made in your submission that noise levels in Kinnegar are three decibels over or double those permitted? Mr Barnett: Yes. Q56 Chairman: That is as outlined in those columns. Where we read 62 plus, 62.7 and 62.8 as opposed to 60, that would be the three decibels over? Mr Barnett: Yes. Q57 Chairman: Thank you for that. I know it is very difficult to describe three decibels to an extent, but how much of a nuisance is three decibels? Mr Barnett: It is a doubling of noise. As far as we can make out, 57 - not 60 - is the onset of significant noise. That is the figure which is used at other airports but for some reason that we do not understand 60 was used as the indicator for Cultra here, so we are already talking about a level higher than would be acceptable in the rest of the United Kingdom. Apparently, 57-60 is a doubling and 60-63 is another doubling. Q58 Chairman: Help me in terms of I am sitting in my front room in Kinnegar and a noise level of 57 is what, detectable but not a nuisance? Mr Barnett: It is a nuisance, it is the onset of significant noise. Q59 Chairman: I am hearing it in my living room in Kinnegar, am I? Mr Barnett: That is outside now. If you open your window you will hear that. Q60 Chairman: Please do not feel there is any trickery in these questions, I am just trying to help the Committee in terms of getting an understanding of the level of real nuisance for residents rather than talking in decibels. Tell us in terms of what impact it has on your lives. Mr Babington: Chairman, being able to tell you precisely what happens at what decibel level is impossible. Perhaps I could give you a general feel and a general impression. Certainly the prospect of standing outside your front door and having a conversation is not an option if planes are going past. If children are playing in the garden, etcetera, trying to talk to them or telling them to come in is not possible. Certainly on summer evenings when your windows are open and planes are going past, you are not going to get to sleep. If you are asleep you may get woken up, not every time, it depends on what type of aircraft and exactly what decibel level it is. Holding conversations in the garden, moving around the house, talking in the house with the windows open, is very difficult. Q61 Chairman: So it is an intrusion into your private lives, particularly during the summer months when you have got the windows open? Mr Babington: Particularly, yes. Chairman: Thank you for that, that is helpful. Q62 Rev Smyth: On the question of noise monitoring, I understand you have been in conversation with the airport authority here on this issue discussing noise monitoring equipment. Have you an estimate of how much it would cost to install such equipment? What would the airport say is their estimate? Mr Barnett: We do not have an estimate but the view we take is that any reasonable sized airport should have noise monitoring equipment. What matters is the actual noise on the ground as measured. We understand this equipment is in position at Dublin and a number of other airports and we say it is a cost of doing business, I am afraid. Q63 Rev Smyth: Dealing with the expert who did the report for you, did they give you any guidance at all as to that level? Mr Barnett: No, we do not know what the cost of that is. Q64 Rev Smyth: You refer to a recent community survey which was commissioned, as I understand, by the airport. Can you elaborate on the findings of that survey? Did your groups participate in the survey and do you know how it was carried out? Was it by postal survey or door-to-door? How many households were surveyed? Mr Babington: If I may answer that. The report, as you say, was commissioned by the airport and independent consultants did it on their behalf, Faber Maunsell. We did not take part in that survey. They sent out forms to a snapshot of individuals and received 842 responses. The responses came from people as far away as Enniskillen and Antrim, which were used as control areas, and also people as far afield on the North Down coast as Donaghadee and people as far away as Carryduff, I think, towards the Belfast direction. It was quite a wide spread. They produced their report to us in January. Q65 Rev Smyth: You say you did not partake, I can understand that as a committee but the survey included people in your area. Mr Babington: Yes, I believe so, but it was totally anonymous so I really could not comment on exactly who responded. Q66 Rev Smyth: Thank you very much. Of course, you have indicated that you would wish to have data on noise and aircraft track and, no doubt, track deviation. Could you tell us how many aircraft a day you believe fly directly overhead? You did say overhead in Kinnegar. My understanding of the Lough is that they come down, not overhead. I may be wrong on that flight path but I am trying to understand the nature of the evidence and what is happening. Could you give us some guidance as to how many aircraft a day you believe fly directly overhead, or whether most fly over Belfast Lough, and is it lateral noise that is the noise rather than the overhead? Mr Watts: If you draw a straight line down the middle of the runway you will find it crosses Kinnegar. The Lough is bending and, if you are talking about aircraft landing, they all overfly Kinnegar if they are approaching from that side. There is a requirement for the airport to maintain a bias of flights over the Lough, so the majority of flights are coming in or taking off over the Lough. With aircraft taking off there is most definitely more flexibility, they can and are able to turn six degrees out over the Lough and that does make a difference. However, the one exception to that is the use of Airbus, which is very intrusive on takeoff. Whether they deviate or not, they are very intrusive on takeoff. Q67 Rev Smyth: Thank you. If you had the data, what would you want to do with it? How would it affect your campaign or is it for long-term usage? Mr Watts: The establishment of reliable, measured data would let us know exactly where we stand for the first time. We believe that it would indicate that the airport is operating outside its permitted parameters. Q68 Rev Smyth: As to where you stand, you would know where the airport stood but what do you intend doing with it? Mr Watts: The situation at the moment is the noise regime is being largely computer modelled or estimated and the research that is being brought to your attention today by Cultra residents tends to confirm our suggestion that it is markedly underestimated. If the Cultra research is correct then they are in breach of the noise guidelines and we would be asking for the airport planners to take normal enforcement action in relation to that. In other words, the airport would be required to take measures to bring itself back to within the permitted noise envelope. The principal outcome of the 1991 public inquiry was that operating within a proper noise climate was to be the principal planning control of this airport. Q69 Rev Smyth: In other words, get the airport to draw back on its operations and not so much seek compensation for what is perceived to be noise pollution affecting homes? Mr Watts: If we had proper real time noise monitoring in the residential areas then we and the airport would all reliably know what climate they are operating in. If that vindicated the airport's position that it is operating within its limits then they would be vindicated. If it vindicated our position that we believe they are operating outside the constraints then we would ask that action be taken. Principally we are looking to preserve the amenity of our lives and our neighbourhood; we are not looking to take compensation or money off people. Mr Pound: Sorry to talk across you but this picks up a point that Mr Watts made. A thing called the East Belfast Environmental Noise Measurement Site has been referred to, particularly in the case of the Mersey Street School. Where is that? Is that a statutory noise monitoring site? Do we have any access to that data? Q70 Chairman: I would imagine that we could access the data, could we not? This would be the same site that you used, would it not? Mr Watts: At the moment the airport does not monitor data anywhere as far as we know. What it does is it computer models and then authenticates in some way that I am not clear about. There have been one or two ad hoc studies, but that is the size of it. Q71 Mr Pound: What is the East Belfast Environmental Noise Measurement Site? Mr Barnett: It is on the playground at Mersey Street. It is the King George VI playground. We put this into evidence. Measurements were taken on this playground and inside Mersey Street School. If you look in the extract you will see the measurements taken on the playground show that they are marginally conforming to the planning regulations in East Belfast but the noise is greater than is measured by the airport. Q72 Mr Pound: I am sorry, sir, I confuse myself sometimes, but is the site monitored by the Jackson Report authors or is it Belfast City as a statutory environmental agency? Mr Barnett: The Jackson Report. Mr Pound: Thank you very much. Q73 Mark Tami: You suggest in your evidence that "it is not difficult therefore to anticipate situations where there will be grounds for legal proceedings claiming compensation for injury to health". Other than noise itself, what do you really see as the likely effects or what you would look to actually claim for? I notice in this document you are concerned about the noise levels on children's learning abilities in the schools affected. Mr McCracken: I would see that there could be a possibility that parents of children attending Mersey Street School could have a claim against the education board for permitting children to remain in buildings which are being subjected to pretty high levels of sound on a pretty continuous basis. Sadly, we are a pretty litigious lot on this side of the Irish Sea. Mr Pound: Not exclusively. Q74 Mark Tami: Are there other effects other than the school issue? Are there any other effects that you could see? Mr McCracken: That seems the most obvious one and perhaps one where we should be most concerned because it affects children. I think in our little survey we discovered there were about 39 schools in the area. Mersey Street is in the most prominent position so far as the airport is concerned. I gather from World Health Organisation research that there is a realisation now that high levels of sound are quite detrimental to health, both to hearing and to general health. Q75 Mark Tami: What do you think would be the chances of a successful case being made? I am not aware of any such case, but bearing in mind noise levels around Heathrow Airport that are extremely high. Mr McCracken: We are very capable of creating precedents over here ourselves. Q76 Mark Tami: It would be on that basis? You are not basing this on some previous case? Mr McCracken: No. For example, I think in the middle of our troubles when our streets and footpaths were not being looked after to the full extent there was a real epidemic of tripping cases. Once these things start ---- Chairman: We shall refrain from commenting on your litigious nature on the basis that it could end up in a law suit. Q77 Mr Pound: As someone who lives in the same ratio to Heathrow Airport as you live to Belfast City, I have been noting these points with great interest, particularly as I have got RAF Northolt behind me and Heathrow in front of me. Can I just follow up a point that the Cultra Residents' Association mentioned in their submission when they said "thousands of householders will be justified in seeking grants for double glazing". Could you give us some idea of how many households and how many homes we are actually talking about? Mr McCracken: Pretty well the whole area of East Belfast. Q78 Mr Pound: The whole of East Belfast? Mr McCracken: Yes. Again, in Northern Ireland we have a separate Order, the Airports (Northern Ireland) Order 1994, which provides under Article 22 that the DoE may also adopt schemes requiring airports to make grants contributing to the installation of insulation in properties affected by their activities. Perhaps at the moment the decibel level is somewhere around 63, so we are getting very close to it and, indeed, there is now an argument in favour that that decibel level should be 57 and not 63. Q79 Mr Pound: Have there been any double glazing installations that you are aware of? Mr McCracken: No, not to our knowledge. Q80 Mr Pound: Can I ask each of you in turn, just for the record, how many residents does the Cultra Residents' Association represent? Mr McCracken: It is about 200 households which are about 400 or 500 people. Q81 Mr Pound: And Kinnegar? Mr Babington: In Kinnegar we have about 215 households. However, we also have people in the wider Holywood area who come to us through various other associations, such as the Holywood Conservation Group and, indeed, I am empowered by other groups in Belfast who are aware that you are sitting today and have said they very much support what we are doing and would like us to represent their views as well, and that stretches to places such as South Belfast and various councillors wrote to me on Saturday to make sure that their constituents' concerns were made open in this forum. Q82 Rev Smyth: Pressing you a little bit further on that, have you any recollection because there is something in the back of my mind that says there were cases taken to find legal authorisation for double glazing and so on? Are you aware of that and did anyone succeed? Mr Babington: I do not think we are, no, we are not aware of any cases. Q83 Mr McGrady: Good morning, gentlemen. We come on to late flights now. Do you accept at all that on certain occasions there would be a necessity for late flights coming in probably after the 9.30pm deadline? I note from your submission to us that you count at least on average 50 such flights a month that arrive after the 9.30 deadline. Are these spread evenly over the month or do you think there are particular flights that are consistently late, or do they all arrive consistently late at the same time? Is there a pattern here? Mr Babington: The airport at each forum, which happens every quarter, provides us with details of which flights are late and from that one can work out what trends are developing. To answer your question about how we identify particular flights, there are certain airlines that stand out, it would be fair to say, as worse offenders than others. That is probably because they have got a larger number of flights in the first place. Likewise, in terms of the airlines it is also a seasonal issue as well. If I can take this year, for instance, in August there were 83 late flights, in April there were 30 and in May there were 17. It does vary. We did our own research last year and we counted 16 in one weekend over Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, but the following weekend there may have been only two or three. It does vary with weather conditions, the airlines, perhaps air traffic control further afield, not just in Northern Ireland but perhaps the South East of England or even Europe. It is hard to define a particular trend but particular airlines do stand out as being worse offenders than others. Q84 Mr McGrady: From that list that you are holding in your hand there, which we would like to look at at some stage, you have the capability of naming names, as it were? Mr Babington: Yes. Q85 Mr McGrady: In your opinion, is this a consequence of maybe one airline setting unrealistic time schedules which I think you referred to in your report also? Mr Babington: Yes. Q86 Mr McGrady: Are there any real reasons for these delays that you can observe? Mr Babington: I may as well say it is public knowledge that the worst offender is Flybe, they have the largest number of flights through City Airport but quite clearly they are ranked top. If I can give you an example: in the month of August they had 59 late flights. Consistently they are the worst offender. We put to the airport at various forum meetings that if they know they are systematically going to be late---- I think you are aware in the Planning Agreement planes are allowed to arrive after hours in exceptional circumstances but we believe allowing so many late flights is a loose interpretation of that legal agreement and a number of late flights are coming in on a systematic basis I believe from Birmingham, which is a bad offender in terms of location, and there may be one or two others as well. That would stand out as the worst offender, Flybe from Birmingham. Q87 Mr McGrady: Just to continue on from that theme, you have an Action Plan and I wonder if you can elaborate slightly on your Action Plan in relation to the noise and late flights? Perhaps afterwards you would be prepared to share your Action Plan with the Committee. Mr Watts: The term "Action Plan" needs to be used carefully. The DRD commissioned a report into current best practice and out of this was to emerge an Action Plan. It has been in preparation between the DRD and the Airport for a year now. We have seen nothing other than a checklist of ticks against subject headings. We have not seen this Action Plan. We made a submission to DRD as to what we thought ought to be in it and we would be delighted to make that available to you. The two principal requirements are real time noise monitoring in residential areas and secondary radar that can actually track the aircraft as to height and line so that they too, if offending, can be slapped on the wrist. At the moment we are told that the Airport does not have that capability. Mr McGrady: Perhaps the Chairman can pursue what stage this Action Plan is at and possible outcomes. Chairman: Certainly we will, it is perhaps something we can do during the Committee's deliberations. Thank you, Mr McGrady. Q88 Mr Hepburn: Just one question concerning the procedure of go-arounds. Can you tell us how frequent this happens? Mr Babington: It probably affects us mostly in Kinnegar. A go-around is basically the aircraft turning around at very much the last minute before it is about to land. It is an occasional thing, how many times a year the Airport will probably have the exact figures, but I have seen four or five myself in the most recent past. Q89 Mr Bailey: Airport expansion: in your evidence you suggest that the airport has "reached and in some cases overstepped the limits of reasonable expansion". Could you explain your interpretation of the term "reasonable" against the background of the Government's White Paper on Aviation which suggested that the airport could accommodate more traffic? Mr Watts: As a matter of operational physics, of course it could, but what I would like to get across to your Committee is that this is an exceptional airport that you are looking at. This airport is in the middle of a very major conurbation. Northern Ireland only has a population of 1.7 million and it is in the extraordinary position of having two airports within 20 miles of each other. One is largely in agricultural land and has the larger facilities and almost no environmental constraints on its operation. It could handle the whole of Northern Ireland's air traffic requirements with ease. We have here an airport which is right in the middle of Belfast, a major city, to the extent that it was designated in European legislation as one of the few city airports, and I am sure you are aware of this, whereby the European Directive contains a definition of "city airport" where "a significant number of people are objectively affected by aircraft noise and where any incremental increase in aircraft movement represents a particularly high annoyance in the light of the extreme situation". If you turn to the lists of such airports in the European Union, you will find that Belfast City is in the glorious company of London City Airport, Stockholm Bromma, and Berlin Temple Hoff, which I understand is about to close. Belfast is a small city compared to those other cities. It is vital that the Committee grasps that this airport is in a particularly sensitive area and, therefore, our argument is that the opportunities for growth of this airport compared to other airports is very limited, if not non-existent. Q90 Mr Bailey: Would you accept that the current planning level of 45,000 flights a year should be maintained? Mr Watts: I have to say, that at their peak they were operating 38,000 ATMs and they were down after 9/11 to 32,000, 33,000 but are up now to 36,000 ATMs, and if the people in our area of Holywood thought there was going to be scope for a 20 per cent growth over the current level there would be despair. That is an extremely generous measure. Q91 Mr Bailey: There is scope, but are you all in despair? Mr Watts: There are several limits on the airport's growth. At the time when the public inquiry was held and the current regime was put in place, the Planning Appeals Commission was looking at a maximum growth to 1.5 million passengers and at the moment there are 2.2 million. They were looking for a maximum growth up to 31,500 ATMs and there are 36,000 ATMs. At the time the public inquiry took place there were half a million passengers flying out of this airport, so there has been a four-fold growth since 1989 and the ATMs have doubled. What that tells you is that this airport has completely changed in character. It was operating small aircraft, maybe 50 seaters. Our group formed and became concerned when we had 100-plus seater aircraft flying in at 350 feet over our heads. This was never envisaged, it goes against the declared idea in the planning policy statement of it being a regional hub airport. The other measure, apart from 45,000 ATMs, is 1.5 million seats for sale and in our understanding they are currently breaching that level as well because we think they are offering over 1.5 million seats for sale. Mr Babington: Over 1.7 million. Q92 Mr Bailey: That is because in effect the number of flights has been reduced or not increased at the same level because of the larger capacity of the planes that have been landing here? Mr Watts: Yes. Instead of small Skyvans flying over our heads, we have now got Airbuses. That is the reality. If that limit is lifted, there is no way with the way it is going, there are going to be more Airbus 737s flying in. That kind of traffic was never envisaged when that planning inquiry took place. Q93 Mr Bailey: Can we just talk about the vibration problems that could be related to the Airbus aircraft. In your report you talk about "intimidation" due to larger Airbus aircraft. Do you not think that is a particularly strong term? Mr Babington: If I may answer that one, speaking as someone living in Kinnegar. The aircraft fly over us at about 300, 350 feet. An A321, which carries, 200 people, is a very large size of aircraft looming over you. The tone of the engine is a lot lower than some of the others, such as a 737 or, indeed, a 146. The windows and the doors do rattle and some of the residents who live very close have said that they believe their houses are vibrating. One person has claimed, and it is only anecdotal, that part of her ceiling fell down but I cannot confirm that. Certainly TVs are interfered with as well. The sheer size of the aircraft going across is very intimidating, particularly if you have children out playing in the garden. You have the physical manifestation, as I say, of windows rattling and doors rattling as well. Q94 Mr Beggs: Good afternoon. Could we focus on the issue of two competitive airports. You suggest that "in recent years civil servants have decided for their own reasons that it is in the public interest to have two competitive airports" and that the existence of two competitive airports "does not make commercial sense". Could you explain your reasons for your conclusion that having two airports does not make commercial sense when both are privately owned and reported to be profitable? Mr Barnett: There are only 1.7 million people here. We have divided that catchment area between two airports and now there is one in Derry as well. These two are so close together and there never was, and is not now, any requirement to create environmental damage in order to create economic benefit. We get all the economic benefit we require from the large airport which was specially constructed for this purpose at Aldergrove. I think we should also remember that the site of City Airport was considered at the time as what became the Aldergrove site and that was rejected. We do not think there is any sense in dividing the catchment area. There is a place in the market for City Airport at a size but we seem to have two full blown airports of nearly equal size, which is not very clever. We have to compete with Dublin and I have brought for you the Dublin winter timetable, for those of you who do not carry it around with you in your pockets. There are 53 direct European destinations from Dublin and nine to North America. That is what we are up against. They have a lower rate of corporation tax. We have got a problem. It will be only an hour and a quarter away from South Belfast when the Dundalk bypass is completed and we will get all the competition we can possibly require, and probably more than we can handle, from Dublin. Q95 Mr Pound: I am very, very interested in the statement you have just made about the initial comparison between airport sites. Are we going back to Sholto Douglas in 1917 or is it more recent than that when the decision was made? Mr McCracken: The decision was made in 1958-59. That was a decision by the UK Government. They looked at the City Airport, Aldergrove, Nutt's Corner and three or four of the old wartime sites like Langford Lodge and at that time they settled on Aldergrove. Sholto Douglas in 1917 seems to have been particularly perceptive in picking Collinstown as well. Q96 Mr Pound: Nutt's Corner closed down in 1958, did it? Mr McCracken: Once Aldergrove opened, Nutt's Corner closed down. Mr Pound: I am just trying to get the picture. Thank you very much. Q97 Mr Beggs: You use the answer to a Parliamentary Question to suggest that "the actions of the civil servants in their daily activities do not appear to support their proposition that competition between the airports is of major benefit to the travelling public". Could you expand on this view since fares alone are not the reason why travellers choose a particular airline and airport. There are also issues of where the journey to the airport starts from as well as the ultimate destination, there are also issues of the time of the flight, the frequency and the flexibility of the ticket which is considered an important feature for business travellers. Mr Barnett: We do not know the reasons for the travel patterns of the Civil Service, we just can see the parliamentary answer on that point which appears to be a bit one-sided but we do not know the reason for that. Q98 Chairman: Our inquiry is timely in as much as the Minister, Angela Smith, has just announced an open public consultation on the airport's request for a review of its current planning agreement and has indicated that she will decide on the need for a public inquiry when submissions have been received. Would you like to comment on that public consultation? Are you happy with the way that it has been set out? Do you have any concerns over the question in consultation? Do you feel that you will be able to put your reservations through not just this Committee but through that consultation exercise? Mr Watts: We have some reservations about it. First of all, it is running through to the middle of January. It is very difficult for residents' groups like ours to respond to this kind of material because it is very detailed, it is very hard to comprehend and none of us work in aviation, we have no natural background in this area. Secondly, we do not know, but we will enquire, exactly when this period kicks off. All we have seen at this stage is a very short summary from the airport asking for a review. We do not know at this stage whether that represents their case or their opening shot, so we do not know what we have to respond to. We have those kinds of concerns. Our feeling is that to some extent the rules are being made up as they go along. What they are seeking to do is to amend the Planning Agreement. I do not believe there is anything in our planning legislation that says how that should be done. Given our express views that the airport currently are not observing the late night flights situation, which the planners will not take action on because of this review, because we think they are breaching the noise levels and not operating correctly on the number of seats for sale, we believe that they should be bringing fresh planning applications. There should be an Environmental Impact Statement and we believe if planners look at that they should come to the conclusion that they must then have a public inquiry and that public inquiry would have in front of it a fresh application and all the information that we would input. We believe that is the way the matter should be handled. Q99 Chairman: That is helpful to us. Mr McCracken: I would come in heavily in support of that on behalf of Cultra. We would be wholly in favour of a public inquiry. I am responsible for a couple of books of correspondence with the Planning Department largely and with the Department for Regional Development and I am proposing to leave those for the Committee's benefit if anyone wants to look at them. Mr McGrady will appreciate that at times it is very difficult to get information out of a body which is not very willing to provide it. We have had a great deal of difficulty in getting information from the planners and that is very, very self-evident in the correspondence. It took about 15 months before it was conceded that they had not put policy AP1 into operation. It has never been put into operation. That is a fairly simple statement: "The Department will establish indicative noise contours against which reasonable growth of airport operations will be assessed". That has never been done. They have relied on simulated information from City Airport on computers. As you gentlemen are probably aware, there was a Department for Transport inquiry at Heathrow where actual tests on 747s coming in discovered that the noise level was double the level being shown by computers in a simulated situation. We say it is absolutely essential to have measurements on the ground. Q100 Chairman: Rest assured that we shall be making the Minister aware of the need to look at the evidence that is submitted to our Committee and to take an interest in our deliberations. Can I say to both residents' groups that you have provided to us quite extensive written representations which are very helpful to us, but is there anything in our questioning this morning that we have omitted? Are there questions you expected us to ask you but we have not or are there any further points that you wish to put to us because we have reached the conclusion of our questions and we do want to make sure that as residents' groups you feel that you have had the opportunity to express all the points that you would wish to put? Mr McCracken: I would just like to make the point that the public inquiry was quite a lengthy public inquiry. It started on about 23 October 1990 and finished in January 1991 and, admittedly, while it was not concerned with the airport all the time, quite a lot of time was devoted to the situation of the City Airport. As a result of that inquiry two policies were produced. The second one was policy AP3: "The Department will seek to maintain the airport's present role and character as a regional airport". Then it goes on: "Since the introduction of passenger services in 1983, Belfast City Airport has fulfilled an important role alongside Belfast International Airport. Aldergrove is Northern Ireland's major airport, a trunk route and international gateway. Belfast City Airport operates mainly as a regional airport serving other regional centres in the United Kingdom with short haul aircraft". The Residents' Association were perfectly happy with those two policies and would have no fault to find with them if they had been implemented but it is the lack of implementation that has caused us quite a lot of surprise and shock. Mr Watts: If I could pick up on one point on that as well. The Planning Agreement they are looking to modify has more recent origins, 1997. We hear sometimes from our uncharitable friends and neighbours, "You bought a house near an airport, you knew what you were buying". Ferrovial bought this airport knowing exactly what the rules and framework are and no doubt the price they paid for it reflected the environmental constraints that airport was expected to operate to and now, within a year of ownership, they want to change the rules of the game. There will be a vast windfall profit for Ferrovial if they are allowed to do that. Mr Babington: If I could just add one point. I said before that I have come with a focus for the other residents' groups who are not present here now and certainly they would view it with great concern if there was not a public inquiry in respect of the current seats for sale restriction possibly being lifted or not. There is a perception that deals are being done behind closed doors, that things are not open and transparent. If I can give you an example: only last year we received a letter from the acting Chief Inspector of the Planning Service in respect of issues concerning the restrictions at the airport and now he is on the Belfast City Airport Board. Facts like that, that are open and public, do not give us a degree of confidence that things will be looked at in an objective way. Chairman: I do hope you will have some confidence in the Select Committee. We have a reputation for being robust and searching in our questions and certainly we shall look for no favours in order to get answers to the questions that we will put to the Government. I do hope you can take some comfort that the concerns you have raised with us will be taken very seriously and will be reflected in the report that we write. Can I thank you very much for attending. I am afraid we never really got the noise level sorted out with the air conditioning. Also, can I thank those residents at the back of the room who did not participate but who have taken the time to be with us and listen to our deliberations. Thank you for your attendance. |