Gatwick Airport are living up to the promise they made regarding compensation for those households situated near the airport and affected by aircraft noise.
Last year the airport promised that thousands of homes would be eligible for double glazing and loft insulation. So far £2.35 million has been spent on those who have signed up to receive financial compensation. 730 households have currently signed up to the scheme and many more are expected to follow in the wake of Gatwick’s proposed expansion plans. Letters have gone out to affected residents who can apply for up to £3000 towards insulting their homes.
£7.2 million has been set aside to help those residents in Surrey, Sussex and Kent who are at the most risk of noise pollution. Gatwick’s CEO Stewart Wingate has said that airport management are “acutely aware that aircraft noise is an important issue to many”. He has said that the airport is taking innovative and generous steps in their noise minimising strategy and are possibly the first airport to do so.
Today’s aircraft are much quieter than they were in the past but the problem for many is the increased number of planes in flight. As airports charge airlines to use its facilities, Gatwick have a discount scheme in place for those airlines that use quieter aircraft. Those airlines with noisier planes will be charged more to use the airport. Therefore there is added incentive for airlines to use quieter technology and to adopt the continuous decent approach which reduces unnecessary noise as the planes come into land.
Gatwick Airport certainly seems to be taking the issue of noise very seriously and it may go in their favour over their continuing battle with Heathrow in their expansion plans. Should Gatwick win the rights over Heathrow to expand their runways or not the compensation scheme will still be welcomed by all those who live under the airport’s flight paths.