‘Stansted is a new cause of aircraft noise alongside Luton Airport’ claims Stevenage man

Steve Garfirth of Stevenage is annoyed at being disturbed by plane noise. (Image: supplied)

Steve Garfirth – also known as engineering expert ‘Steve G’, the ‘prince of pressure’, on television show Motor Morphers on Channel 5 – contacted the Comet after reading an article on a leap in complaints about plane noise from Luton Airport.

We reported that between January and March this year there were 191 noise complaints – compared to 107 in the first quarter in 2015.

Flight movement maps published by the airport, recording westerly and easterly movements over a 24-hour period, showed a concentration of planes flying over many urban areas in Herts, including Stevenage and Letchworth – with this county suffering more than those living near Luton’s base in neighbouring Bedfordshire.

But, Steve said: “We have had, for the past 12-18 months, a new cause of aircraft noise over Stevenage, air traffic departing from Stansted, on their new easterly departure route.”

Steve Garfirth has sent The Comet screen grabs of flights over Stevenage, which he said were flying from Stansted (Image: supplied)

He believes that three images he recently screen-grabbed one evening, using ‘Plane Finder’ real-time tracking, show that Stansted’s aircraft “are on a steady climb under power creating much more noise, and due to their height when over Stevenage, being between 7,000-10,000 feet is causing the created noise cone on the ground to be much wider than anything for Luton.

“This large noise cone therefore means that the noise is much more prolonged over the duration.

“In practice this means that often when at peak times the next aircraft is coming at the same time the preceding aircraft has passed over, which results in an almost continuous noise issue.”

Steve said an interesting exercise would be to “overlay Stansted flight data on top of the Luton flight data – I am sure people in Stevenage would be amazed at the air traffic flow when combined. That is without us even including the very often local helicopter flights, or the London City departure traffic.”

He said it was ‘morally wrong’ that Luton Airport was both operated and authorised by Luton Borough Council, which means “they have nobody they need to really answer to, especially as Luton itself is not overflown by air traffic from Luton”.

Although Steve has contacted NATS, which provides air traffic control services and handles 2.4 million flights in UK airspace, the organisation “basically washed their hands of any responsibility, stating that it simply monitors and does not make the rules.”

Calling about greater political intervention to fight the problem of aircraft noise pollution, he added: “Personally I feel there is little that can be done against these monsters of industry.”

A spokesman for Stansted Airport responded: “From a Stansted perspective aircraft have been flying in and out of the same routes for more than 30 years. The claim that aircraft on easterly departures overfly the area is inaccurate. Planes taking off on these routes fly east, towards Clacton, Essex.”

He added: “It’s worth noting that aircraft from all over the UK overfly the area.”

The spokesman said that the airspace in the south east is ‘complex and busy’, and that NATS was “responsible for the management of airspace rather than the airports”.