Hello All,

Hillingdon Council, is currently considering a planning application (ref. 41573/APP/2024/2838) submitted by Heathrow Airport Limited, which proposes development works that would change the way Heathrow Airport operates.

Why now? – Well read on.

While Heathrow will happily tell you that the northern and southern runways both allow take offs and departures. Departures are generally into a headwind and the prevailing wind from the south-west means approximately 70% of operations are in a westerly direction.

When planes are landing and taking off towards the west, known as (westerly operations), Heathrow alternate the use of the two runways to provide local communities with respite. This means for part of the day Heathrow use one runway for landings and the other for take-offs, then at 3pm, it switches over. At the end of each week, the pattern changes.

At present, when planes take off towards the east known as (easterly operations), only the southern runway is used due to a historical arrangement known as the Cranford Agreement, which central government formally ended in 2009.

But interesting, amazing they haven’t done this before. Perhaps it weakened the case for the 3rd runway if it was clear they weren’t at maximum maximum capacity however that is clearly not the case longer as passenger numbers (and profits) are up to pre-pandemic levels.

The reality is the airport only has taxiways on three sides of its four corners and Heathrow Airport requires taxiways on every corner of the two runways for its planned expansion to continue. This new taxiway under the guise of flight alternation is a pre-cursor to and a necessity for the third runway to go ahead. It is essential to the expansion on the airport as a whole and there can be no question that the new runway that will follow and this will be announced shortly.

Whether it will it improve efficiency is debatable however it will cause more flight and it will spread the noise, particularly for the long-suffering residents of Stanwell Moor.

It will increase taxi times, increase likelihood of delays, it will increase emissions and more importantly it will substantially increase to amount of aircraft flying over our homes.

More news to follow. I will continue to do all I can to fight for justice and keep resident supporters of our campaign updated.