BAA Offer On Heathrow Planning Blight

BAA's consultation

The government 'White Paper' on aviation said that airport operators should make proposals to protect neighbours of airports against the 'planning blight' caused by anticipated airport expansion and to offer mitigation against noise for 'noise-sensitive' buildings.

BAA has made two sets of proposals which it has issued for public consultation:

• protecting against planning blight
• noise mitigation

The proposals can be found on the BAA web site: blight and noise. Responses are required by 21 Dec.

This page outlines the schemes on planning blight and gives FOE's comments. See separate page for information on noise mitigation proposals.

Blight

The consultation document (CD) says BAA is seeking views from, among others, "local airport-related campaign groups". West London Friends of the Earth clearly falls into that category, but has not received a copy of the CD or been otherwise notified by BAA. We shall respond anyway!

See below for summary of the blight proposals and our response.

To protect against blight, BAA is proposing two schemes:

• Property Market Support Bond - for people whose property would fall within a potential new expanded airport boundary
• Home Owner Support Scheme - for people whose property would be closest to a potential new expanded airport boundary and affected by medium to high levels of noise.

Property Market Support Bond

If land is needed for airport development, Compulsory Purchase can be undertaken. However, under this statutory scheme, this compensation is only paid once the developer has purchased the property. It can take many years for a development to progress from initial proposals to start of construction. The Bond will enable owners to anticipate compulsory purchase and thereby get out earlier.

This is for residential, agricultural owner-occupiers and for the owners of smaller businesses who would be within the extended airport boundary. The White Paper sets out a general indication of where a runway would be built. BAA is developing an 'Airport Master Plan' which will show the sites to be safeguarded for development purposes - that is a third runway (R3) and the associated developments such as terminals and roads. This will be published in spring 05.

Once the new boundary has been identified, an affected property owner will be able to apply for a BAA Heathrow Property Market Support Bond. This is a transferable, written assurance that BAA Heathrow will offer to purchase the property once a decision is announced that BAA Heathrow intends to submit a planning application for a new runway. Once this decision has been announced, bond holders will have discretion as to whether and when to require BAA Heathrow to purchase their property.

The price which will be index-linked to the price it had been immediately before the Government's CD was published ie June 03. The intent of this is to ensure that owners do not suffer loss of value due to 'blight' caused by the CD's proposal to expand Heathrow.

Home Owner Support Scheme

If a new runway is developed, people who were previously little unaffected by the airport may find themselves living in an area close to, but beyond, the new airport boundary. They could then be affected by, for instance, an increase in aircraft noise levels.

People whose property values may be affected as a result are not usually able to apply for compensation for the impacts of the development until a year after the new development opens. At that time, they have a right to seek compensation for loss in property value under the terms of the Land Compensation Act 1973. (But they will need to be well enough off to afford the legal fees and a win is by no means guaranteed.) But until that time, there is no statutory support for property owners suffering from property blight.

The aim of the Home Owner Support Scheme, once implemented, is to ensure that eligible home owners and small businesses in the area covered by the scheme are able to move, if and when they want to, without suffering a loss in the value of their property. The scheme applies to houses which would experience 66dB Leq average over a 16 hour day.The scheme is voluntary - no-one would be forced to move if they did not want to.

The scheme would give a guarantee that BAA would buy a property for the market value (as it would have been if no new runway had been proposed). The scheme would be invoked only when BAA announces its decision to proceed with the construction of a new runway. Actual purchase would only happen after planning permission had been granted.

FOE's Comments On The Proposals

The primary aim should be to minimise noise around Heathrow. Any schemes such as these are a poor substitute for that aim and in now way legitimise or make the noise more acceptable.

Relatively few of FOE's members are likely to be affected by the proposals. But this is because the area covered by the scheme is deliberately small. Only those people inside an extended airport and those in the very noisiest areas - over 66dB Leq - will be offered anything. Very large areas and large numbers of people who are beyond this area but who will be affected by a third runway are offered nothing. It is largely on behalf of these people in particular that FOE is responding to the consultation.

Our other major concern is that, even for those that fall within the scheme, the offers they only protect against blight to a very limited extent. In particular, nothing is offered until BAA chooses to announce that it is planning a new runway.

Set against the vast profit that BAA makes from Heathrow, the 'new' money, ie that which BAA would have to pay out anyway, is very small. Almost certainly it does not provide full compensation for the blight and it therefore fails to meet the government's aim that the aviation industry should pay for the costs it imposes on others, ie 'external costs'. (The external cost of aircraft noise in the UK is estimated by Airport Watch, based on an EU study, is £350 million pa. Most of this is accounted for by Heathrow.)

Irrespective of issues about selling, there should be mitigation and compensation for impacts. These should not just apply where the support and relocation packages are not offered. They should also apply where property bond and support scheme apply, but where owners prefer to stay put and thus would get nothing from the packages.

It will probably be claimed by BAA that it is doing what the government required it to do in the White paper; and therefore our demands are unreasonable. We take the view that if BAA genuinely wishes to be seen as a 'good neighbour', it has go well beyond the minimum that the government requires it to do.

Links to Related Pages

Noise mitigation consultation
Runway 3 threat
Back to Heathrow introduction
Back to aviation introduction

Dec 04