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PROPOSED changes of airspace around Stansted Airport may cause future problems for rural communities in East Anglia.

The Terminal Control North (TCN) Airspace change proposal has been put forward by the National Air Traffic Service (NATS) and will mainly affect the Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and North East Essex area.

The proposal is the biggest of its kind in four years and has been labelled as the “Biggest-ever consultation on airspace change”. It has mostly changed the flight paths for arrivals into Stansted Airport and the location and number of flight stacks.

NATS say the changes are based on the estimated growth and increasing demand for flights from Stansted Airport.

From 2007 to 2014 the predicted growth per year of the airport is 3.5 per cent. The Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) estimate that in Britain, from 2007 to 2021, the number of domestic flights will increase by 40 per cent and the number of foreign flights will increase by 50 per cent.

A public consultation about the proposal, by NATS, was started on February 21, 2008. The deadline for feedback on the proposal is May 22, 2008, when the consultation will finish.

Currently there are two plane stacks, Abbot and Lorel, in East Anglia. They are shared by Stansted Airport and Luton Airport. These will be replaced with one stack for flights destined for Luton Airport and two stacks for flights destined for Stansted Airport.

Flight stacks, or holds, are designated areas in the air for arrival flights to fly through before they land. The shape of a stack is an upside down cone.

In the NATS proposal the top of the stacks are at fourteen thousand feet and finish at seven thousand feet; aeroplanes fly within the stack at one thousand foot intervals. Aeroplanes have to join a stack at the lowest available point and have to leave a stack at seven thousand feet; it takes on average four minutes for an aeroplane to fly through a stack.

Another big change in the NATS proposal is the location of flight paths for arrivals into Stansted Airport. Both the easterly and westerly arrival flight paths have been dramatically altered. They, along with the proposed flight stacks, are over more rural areas.

NATS refused to comment over the phone about the change in flight paths and stacks, but said in a document: “Just like bottlenecks on our roads, increased air traffic causes congestion in the airways meaning delay and extra fuel burn-and that has an impact on the environment. Redrawing the routes enables us to make them more efficient to reduce delay.”

Tom Johnson, 39, of Bromley, South East London, is the director for the AEF, and disagrees with NATS’ aims for the proposal. He said: “In general terms they are presented as if there is a noise benefit, emissions benefit, and that it is for the good of the environment. This is really about putting more aircraft into our skies, each aircraft in our sky is a noise event and therefore for every winner in terms of a moved flight path that goes away from them, there has to be a looser.”

He added: “I think NATS feels in particular that in trying to get noise away from urban areas it is fair to effectively dump it on the countryside.”

There are criticisms of the public consultation since it started. Many people in the rural areas that the new stacks and flight paths will potentially affect, think the information provided from NATS is inadequate. The availability of the proposal and consultation documents and feedback process of the proposal have also been criticised.

But the biggest criticism has been that NATS have declined many invitations to speak to communities, pressure groups, and even councils.

Alastair Norman is the creator of a website campaigning for rural peace, in opposition to the NATS proposal. He would feel let down if the proposal was passed. He said: “My opinion is that the new flight paths and stacks will be detrimental to the peace and tranquillity of our countryside from noise and visual intrusion.”

Many action groups are campaigning against the NATS proposal in the rural communities of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and North East Essex. They are all concerned about the NATS proposal because it does not take into account a possible Stansted Airport expansion.

The proposal has to be passed by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). If it passes it will be put in place at the beginning of next year.

Melvyn Nice, from the Stansted Media Centre, said: “The safe and efficient management of airspace in the south-east of England is a very important issue and we urge as many people as possible to take part in the NATS public consultation process.”

ENDS