Airservices Australia has adopted a proposal from a UK-based airspace design consultancy, TRAX International, to employ noise sharing to deal with the excessive noise pollution across Brisbane. But Brisbane Flight Path Community Alliance says this is not a real solution as it will just spread the pain to people currently not affected by the problem.
With the launch of Brisbane Airport’s New Parallel Runway on 12 July 2020 came a new airspace design and flight paths that concentrate aircraft noise over densely populated residential areas. Brisbane Airport and Airservices Australia sold this project to Brisbane communities suggesting the New Parallel Runway will enable them to prioritise “over water” operations. The airport’s CEO Gert-Jan de Graaff is on the record saying, “The net effect of aircraft flying over the city will decrease.”
However, almost immediately after becoming operational the new flight paths caused a deluge of complaints about flight noise because the airport’s promises were broken and turned out to be misleading. To solve this, Airservices Australia have now released a report that confirms they want to spread this noise over more suburbs to reduce its current concentration.
BFPCA Chair, Dr Marcus Foth, says without a flight cap and curfew this measure is a blank cheque for Airservices and Brisbane Airport Corporation for almost infinite growth.
“By being allowed to spread the noise and affect even more people, BAC and Airservices will continue to turn the once liveable city of Brisbane into their aerotropolis vision – an airport dominated city – where 110 flights per hour will overfly hundreds of suburbs at low altitudes,” Dr Foth said.
“We are very concerned that any small relief will be soon overtaken by the expansionist growth plans of Brisbane Airport Corporation aiming to increase demand to fully utilise their entirely unrestricted capacity of 110 flights an hour. BFPCA notes that across the 363 pages of the PIR report, Airservices have not proposed ANY compromises or sacrifices to the airport’s capacity. So far, the airport is not being asked to make any net reductions to accommodate the liveability, health, wellbeing, as well as economic productivity of Brisbane residents and communities trying to live, work, learn, and sleep across 169 suburbs of Brisbane affected by severe noise pollution,” he said.
“What BFPCA wants is a cap on the number of flights allowed in and out of Brisbane Airport, as well as a curfew to ensure that they can’t ram as many flights over us as in London or Singapore. This will result in a net reduction, which is the only way this problem can be maturely managed with any justice in its outcome.”
“Sydney is the country’s busiest airport, and they do fine with both a cap and curfew. It’s high time Brisbane residents are treated equally to their southern neighbours – we want the same lesgislative community protections they have.”
In fact, Adelaide, Essendon, and Gold Coast airports have a curfew, too. It begs the question why Airservices Australia and Brisbane Airport Corporate think they can pull the wool over Brisbane’s eyes?
More information about noise sharing is available on the BFPCA website including an explainer video at bfpca.org.au/noisesharing
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Brisbane families and communities are suffering from excessive noise pollution and associated health and related impacts from Brisbane Airport’s new flight paths launched in July 2020. Both the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman report and the Brisbane Airport PIR Advisory Forum (BAPAF) have now confirmed that Brisbane communities were misled using flawed noise modelling, deceiving community engagement, and offering inadequate noise abatements.
The Brisbane Flight Path Community Alliance (BFPCA) has come together to fight back on behalf of all Brisbane families and communities experiencing this noise pollution.
For more information about BFPCA visit bfpca.org.au
Contact: Dr Marcus Foth, BFPCA Chair and Spokesperson, [email protected]
