BAA has decided not to submit a planning application for the taxiway works necessary for aircraft to routinely take-off over the village of Cranford.
Under normal operations at Heathrow, one runway is used for arrivals and the other for departures. When aircraft are taking off and landing towards the west, the runway used for arrivals/departures is switched at 3pm to give local residents respite from noise. However, when weather conditions mean aircraft are taking off and landing towards the east (easterly operations), runway alternation has been prevented by the Cranford agreement, which prohibited aircraft routinely taking off to the east from Heathrow’s northern runway.
The government is committed to ending the Cranford agreement. This would allow runway alteration during easterly operations if BAA built the necessary taxiways. However, BAA has decided that at this current time it is not going to submit a planning application to the London Borough of Hillingdon.
The reasons for this are two fold. Firstly, BAA believes this could lead to confusion given the current trial of ‘Operational Freedoms’ that is happening at Heathrow. The trial, which means aircraft take-off over Cranford under certain circumstances, will be taking place at the same time as the London Borough of Hillingdon would be required to consult on Heathrow’s planning application for the enabling works. This could make it difficult for members of the public and other key stakeholders to make the distinction between the two.
In addition, the requirement for Heathrow to carefully monitor the impacts of the Operational Freedoms trial provides an opportunity to undertake ground noise monitoring in Longford and departure noise monitoring in Cranford. This information will help BAA to better understand the impact of aircraft using the northern runway for easterly departures, something that would become standard operating practice once full alternation on easterlies is introduced. A decision on submitting a planning application will be taken at the end of the Operational Freedom trial.
