London’s Heathrow Airport has launched its Airspace and Future Operations consultation, which opens today (January 8) until March year (2019), where they will ask local communities to help shape the airport’s future airspace design.
Heathrow is holding a multi-stage consultation process to ensure that stakeholders have the best opportunity to be involved throughout the process. This approach to consultation will help shape the future of Heathrow, and ensure it creates a legacy of jobs, growth and trade for a truly global Britain while delivering on its commitments to local communities.
Emma Gilthorpe, Heathrow’s Executive Director for Expansion, who urges local people to participate in the consultation, said: “Heathrow’s aim is to design a sustainable, fair and more efficient future airport while connecting the UK to global growth.
It is crucial that our plans maximise the benefits of expansion across the country, including for the communities closest to us—and working in partnership with our neighbours is just one way of ensuring they do so. We are committed to delivering expansion responsibly, and we encourage everyone to have their say and take part.”
The Airspace & Future Operations consultation is set to run for eight weeks, seeking feedback on many key topics such as local factors to consider in different geographic areas when designing future flight paths, arrivals on the two existing runways, and how they will operate three runways in the future – including how to manage noise; respite through runway and airspace alternation; directional preference and night flights.
Throughout the Airspace and Future Operations Consultation period, Heathrow will be holding open consultation events where people will be able to learn about our plans, ask questions, and provide us with their feedback.
There will be more than 30 consultations across local boroughs where members of the public will be able to ask questions and provide feedback. The consultation documents and feedback forms are available online for the entire duration of the consultation period.
Heathrow will hold a further consultation in June on its emerging plans for expansion including the new runway and associated physical infrastructure, as well as presenting options to mitigate and manage the effects of the airport’s growth.
Delivering a responsible expansion is Heathrow Airport’s priority and the process of open and transparent public consultation is crucial to building the right plan and the launch of this stage of the consultation keeps Heathrow on schedule to deliver expansion, which is part of the key trading infrastructure Britain will need to succeed post-Brexit.
Photo credit: Heathrow Airport website
