Justify night flights, court orders
European Court of Human Rights takes a stand on London Airport noise

by Paul Brown-Environment Correspondent
The Guardian (England)
March 13 2000

Night flights at [London] Heathrow may infringe the right to a decent home
life of families that live in the flight path, according to the court of
human rights in Strasbourg.

In a test case on aircraft noise the court has ordered the
government to justify subjecting 1m people in London to
unacceptable nighttime noise.
Eight residents near Heathrow have spent seven years fighting the
decision of the government to allow 16 night flights between 4 am
and 6 am and unrestricted flights between 6 am and 7am.

Judges at Strasbourg have accepted the case and called on the
government to account for itself. So far the government has failed to
put up a defence- partly because the only one that appears to be
open to it in law is that night flights are vital to the national
economy.

Lawyer Susan Ring, who with her partner, Richard Buxton, is
representing the residents, said the human rights court had
accepted that under article 8 of the European convention night
flights might infringe the right to enjoyment of your home. The case
had already gone through judicial reviews in England and to the
House of Lords.

One high court judge has described the government's case as
"devious and deeply unattractive".
Ms Ring added: "That was even before the government's conduct
was shown by evidence to have been dishonest: saying one thing
to residents and to the courts, and another thing to the terminal 5
public inquiry."

The government had introduced night flights in 1993 to further the
commercial interests of the airlines having earlier claimed it was
going to reduce noise.

Under English law "night " is from 11:30 pm to 7am but the
government lopped an hour off to allow unrestricted flights after 6am.

Phillipa Edmunds lives less than a mile form the end of the runway
and is one of eight people who have given statements to the
Strasbourg judges. She has two children Lucy, eight and Eve, six,
who are woken up by jets. "Sleep depravation is used as a form of
torture. That is what happens when these jumbo jets start arriving
at 4am and keep on coming. It is a human rights issue, the right to
a decent night's sleep. We have had the house double-glazed,
which helps but it is not enough. We wear earplugs, and cannot
open the windows. It affects our moods and our productivity at
work."

John Cavalla, a retired research scientist lived for 42 years close to
Heathrow under the flightpath at Osterley, west London, but moved
because he could no longer stand the night flights.
"To start with there were none and then it just got worse and
worse. They started about 4am and got more and more frequent.
Between 6am and 7am they came every 90 seconds. In the end it
just drives you crazy. We just had to get out."

Ms Ring said that because of the night flights the area close to
Heathrow has become a ghetto of poor housing. "Anyone with
enough money or a decent job moves out leaving those in low paid
jobs behind. Only people who cannot afford to go anywhere else
live under the night time flight path.
 

---

CURRENT NEWS                                   ISSUES

This page last updated on March 30, 2000.