cicelyl

Has anyone noticed how lovely it when there are no planes flying overhead. I get so upset when I think about what life could be like without living under a highway. I cannot believe Geoff Hoon gives statistic for 2002 for flights over ED. They must have newer statistics. Way more than 169 planes fly over my house a day. On a bad day at least 20 go over an hour and they are lower. And what is this 57dBA noise contour?!?! It means nothing to me. What means something is being woken up every morning and having to turn the stereo up to drown out the planes! I hate the way politicians just send these useless letters! Yes quieter planes than in the 1960s and 1970s but by how many 100% have flights increased and they come lower than ever! I am so depressed about how badly the airport is managed.

The flights come in lower when there is cloud cover (they try to go under the cloud) and also it depends where the plane was in the stack when it comes off the stack. If it was at the top, it comes in higher, if it was at the bottom it comes in low. Also, planes now come in lower than they did five years ago. They now 'glide' in. This is to reduce noise levels on areas close to the aiport from the planes making a steep descent and to reduce fuel consumption. The result is planes being lower much further out than they used to be. Technically the government does not recognise that ED has a plane noise problem as the noise levels are high enough to be considered bothersome. This is why contacting (and keeping up that contact) government memders is so important. They don't think we have an issue! Lastly, the reports are that the planes will ger LOWER in the new expansion plans. I did some rough number crunching and if the government gets its way do away with runway alteration and expand runway use, ED could have one plane a minute going over it for 16 hours a day. That would only give us half the flight going over London a day. ED is on a straight line to Heathrow so ED will be very badly effected by the expansion. All I can say is that I will be long gone from the hood by then. I do not want to spend my life looking at the sky, turning up the stereo, shutting the windows, not using the garden and lying awake counting planes at 5am....The flight noise over ED is sad joke. I will look into the petition.

I do think spreading the pain is the only solution as a wholesale stop on expansion over the next 30 years is not going to help. Spreading the pain means altering the westerly preference as well as using the other airports more. In addition the issue isn't just stopping further expansion, but cutting down on existing noise levels. If you look at development plands for Heathrow the plan is for over 700,000 (currently 475,000) flights a year which compares with 260,000 (190,000 currently) for Stanstead. Heathrow planes fly over much more densly populated areas thus impacting many many more people. They now say 2 million people are impacted by plane noise in London. ED is very badly impacted because we are on the flight path for the North runway, the South runway and for city airport. Basically planes converge over us all day long. However, Southwark has no official lobby on Heathrow plane noise and is not a party to 2M a cross-party lobby group which includes councils like Hammersmith, Fulham, Richmond etc. Unless the government acutally has the will-power to realize this is seriously impacting the quality of life in London and decides to develop a Thames estuary airport we will all spend a large part of our lives living with airplane noise or fighting to live in the few scraps of London not severally impacted. I suggest you email both your MP and you counsellors on the website I set out above. Also, join HACAN. The more members they have from different areas the more effectively they can lobby. They are pretty well organized and run and their webiste has lots of info. I will look into a petition and let your know if this could work....but a flood of emails and letters is also effective.

Weren't the planes lovely last night?!? Coming in low and every 60 seconds for hours on end. If you think this is an acceptable way to live that is fine, but I don't. I cannot accept that sleep and peace of mind is going to be constantly erroded by such high levels of noise pollution. This problem has developed over huge areas of London and everyone seems to think it is just fine or that nothing can be done. Well, when they do away with the ban on night flights and no one can sleep then maybe people will listen. East Dulwich is just as bad south west London if you live on or near the flight paths (top half of ED). There is very little difference and indeed our planes seem to be louder as they are turning over ED and have there flaps up, creating a high pitched noise. There are solutions - develop Gatwick and Stanstead and spread the pain, do away with the westerly preference and have more days where planes are landing from the west (spread the pain again) by acknowledging that communities like ED suffer from plane noise as much as communities that live closer to Heathrow and are near to take off paths, have the planes come off the stacks on different paths depending on which runway is in use (planes fly over ED regardless of which runway is being used, meaning we get planes all day but somewhere like Fulham only get them half the day), develop a real plan for 21st century aviation and have an airport which does not take all the planes landing in London flying in at 4000ft over the entire city! Please write to our MP and city counsellors at www.writetothem.com. It takes a few minutes and I did actually get some good responses - keep the pressure up! They need to know this is impacting our lives. Also, join HACAN at www.hacan.org.uk Something needs to be done, not just to stop the further planned expansion, but also to deal with the current unacceptable problem.

Some people are more sensitive to the noise than others. Also, living just a few blocks away and how good yoru windows are can make a major difference on what you hear. I live on a very bad street. At first I thought I was just being overly sensitive, but then when I have friends over who live three blocks south or five blocks due west and they have commented that the planes are way worse over my house.....great! I actually disagree that nothing can be done. Not enought people have made this an issue, but I can tell you with air traffic levesl scheduled to double this will just get worse for south london. There are solutions, like rotating the planes more from east to west landings and developing other airports around London to spread the burden. Most flights still come in to Heathrow. I have also contacted local politicians and gotten a lot of personal responses. It just takes a few minutes to let them know this is an issue for you....or we could just all live the rest of our lives getting woken up at 5am by jumbo jets.

I cannot stress enough that unless people start taking action the planes will get worse. We bought our house almost two years ago and it was a huge mistake because of the constant plane noise. We will move as soon as we can afford it as really is so disturbing and is impacting our enjoyment of our house and garden. We should not have to live with the constant high pitched noise of planes, lasting 16 hours a day, often with little of no gap. I would rather lose money and take the pain now than suffer for the next 15 years as planes get even more frequent and lower in the sky. I do think this is the fault of the government (whoever may be in power). No other city has made such a huge planning mistake by allowing Heathrow to develop the way it has. There is also a westerly preference (planes landing from the east flying over the length of the city) to protect communities nearer Heathrow (Cranford Agreement). However, the result now is that huge numbers of communities like ED are seriously suffering as landing planes are coming in much lower and are much noisier then they used to be. They could bring in more planes from the East (it is not just an issue about landing in to wind) and this would bring a lot more relief. The problem is that communities further from the airport like ED have not complained enough about the noise. As far as the government is concerned we have no issue. There are also quite serious negaitve health consequences from plane noise (which the government is ignoring). They have done studies on people who sleep under a flight path and their blood pressure increases when the planes start at night...even when they do not wake up! It has also been shown to distract children and reduce their ability to concentrate. There are other options. London has Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead who can all take increased flights. Why should everything go to Heathrow? The reason is that the government plans to develop Heathrow as a global hub! Yer, you have it, people flying in to Heathrow and then straight out again. They want Heathrow to be the top hub in Europe. Hence the pressing need to increase Heathrow's capacity. The Economist wrote a very interesting acticle on Heathrow recently pointing out how little this benefits the economy, the huge noise and pollution problems with will cause and how Heathrow is just a BAD idea because it cannot expand enough for the 21 century. It is too close to London and on the wrong side of London! They need to go back to the drawing board. Please get involved. Email and phone your MP and join HACAN. It really isn't that much effort. If we do nothing how is the government to know that communities like us are becoming seriously impacted.

That is great news. May I make one suggestion. I work quite long hours in the city and have had real trouble getting a class that fits my schedule. 10am on Tuesday is just not good for a working woman. Classes in the evening (and I mean starting past 7pm) and on the weekends would be great!

Try putting a fan in the room. The white noise blocks out a lot of the sound. We get jumbo jets coming over very early sometimes and even with the windows closed if we don't have the fan on they can wake us up. Since sleeping with a fan, we are getting much more sleep! On the point raised about what to actually loddy for, there is lot that can be done. I am not from London and I think it is shocking that everyone is so apathetic about the planes and how much worse they have gotten and are going to get. The government has postponed its decision on Heathrows massive expansion. Write to your MP and join HACAN. HACAN can be much more effective at lobbying when they have thousands and thousands of members. I am not going to say anything about other government policies, but Labour has been clear in putting Heathrow expansion as a priority, while the Conservatives have been much more critical. Even more interesting is that the new mayor is trying to get the idea of a new Thames estuary airport revived. This was looked at in 1987 (I remember it being a big item on the news) and then rejected in favour of terminal five. Well here we are 20 years later and Heathrow is again at capacity and further expansion (doubling!) is necessary. Maybe Heathrows location is a problem! Taking some pain now in terms of cost could benefit London in a huge way in the future. I don't want planes flying over head at 2000ft every 60 seconds, which is what is currently being proposed. It is bad enough at 4000ft and every 90 seconds....oh, and they want to fly them in around the clock! Obviously one can tell this issue bothers me :)

The flights over ED are supposed to increase and get lower. The government is planing to double the number of flights over London. Currently flights take off on one runway and land on another, thus, you will notice that the planes will sometimes be more over peckham rye (north runway) or more over ED (southern runway). Those at the top of ED near peckham rye are actually on two flight paths! When the new proposals come in they will do away with runway alterations. Two flight paths will operate over southern london in to Heathrow. To accomodate the increased traffic coming off the stacks they will bring the flights in even lower and at 60 second intervals (currently 90 seconds). They are also thinking of doing away with the current ban on night flights. The upshot is that things could likely get a lot worse. I really suggest people make their feelings known. This could mean constant noise over the neighbourhood. On top of all this, the economic case for Heathrows expansion is seriously flawed. The main problem being with even doubling the current flights over London and the third runway, there will no further room for epansion and by 2020 it will be again at capacity. Some people are calling for a complete rethink. Heathrow's current position is considered to be a disaster by everyone. It was a planning mistake as it was never meant to accomodate the traffic it does. I really suggest people get involved. You can join HACAN (www.hacan.org.uk) or other organisations aimed at lobbying the government. Also, phone up BAA and complain about them bringing in the planes so low. HACAN has noticed that its memberhsip base is shifting with people much further from Heathrow joining because they are bringing in planes lower and slower over London, meaning constant noise. Unfortunatly ED is right in the perfect spot to get a lot more plane noise!

I didn't mean to offend anyone. I understand perfectly that not everyone can afford a to rent or buy a house. As a double income household we struggle to afford our current house. My point is that decisions to take a street with houses and convert them into 1 and 2 bed flats changes the make-up of the neighbouhood. There is no doubt about it. It attracts a different crowd. Less likely to have families with 2 plus children. I am not saying that having or not having children makes one a better or worse person! It simply means a different atmosphere. When I was a child I could run accross the street and play with lots of children my age who lived on my street. With an ever increasing number of houses in my area becoming flats there is less likely to be families around. My point was what is wrong with keeping it as a single family house and renting it out to a larger family? Why does every rental have to end up being split into flats. The majority are already flats....why not keep a few houses so people with mulitple children have some good choices. As someone who doesn't even own a car I can't comment on the 4x4s but I can say that I am not a fan (to put it mildly).

Yes I am pretty depressed about my actually being able to do anything about this. The council would happily see the entire ED converted into flats. More council tax for them! However I will try. Someone needs to fight to ensure the community remains geared towards families (and yes I get the point that one family can live in a 2 bed flat, but most families are larger and will want more space). Frankly, what good affordable family neighbourhoods are left near central london! Not many. And house prices will decline, so the current equivalent house which is on the market for ?590 (the house that sold for ?680 last may was a much larger type of house accross the road) will go down even more, making the neighbourhood more affordable.

Maybe it is just my negative experience with flats on the street....last night I looked out at the top floor flat accross the road and was delighted to see a porn playing on a giant screen TV. Also, more likely than not to get people without children, people who are younger, have two living rooms in the same building so more noise from multiple TVs and music etc and then parking. Could get up to 4 extra cars on the street. We live right next to the house so will be impacted by the increased level of noise and activity. It seems a shame as family houses are in short supply, 2 bed flats don't seem to be. They are putting them in all over ED, including 8 in one building on Barry Road. There are a lot of flats on the street already and this will likely push the single family homes into a minority on the street. It also seems that people would be interested in purchasing this as a single family house.

I think this is a great idea. We were burgaled not too long ago. It is not pleasant.

I got notice of another conversion of a family home on Kelmore Grove into two 2 bed flats. The street has some lovely family homes on it, but it seems the trend is to turn the street into more flats rather then keep it orientated towards families. I want to object to the development. Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks

This might be a silly question, but was what is the difference between a nanny and a childminder. It might be that I am not from the UK originally, but not sure what the difference is.....all I know is that I will need one/both/either in eight months!