Heathrow traffic flies directly over our house near Slough when the weather it bad, they would normally fly in over Datchet and Windsor.

The noise doesn't bother me much but I am used to all kinds of noises in and around our area, cars, sirens, planes, strimmers lawn mowers. If you live near or within the vicinity of a large city then expect city noises.

i found the opposite. it was the clear, cold winters days that were the loudest - i might assume because theres no cloud to reflect what little background traffic noise there is early in the morning and drown out the aircraft.

The issue here is that we can't just cull the birds as they are migratory and there are so many of them that fly to the area annually that they would be near impossible to cull. If you did manage to do it then you've wiped out a large part of the food chain, probably not the best idea going. On top of that there are legal treaties to prevent culling birds in just this way.

Yes the wreck can probably be cleared, QinetiQ coud even use it as a promotional event (unless it all goes wrong :eek:)

NATS say that Boris Island is in the worst possible place for an airport and if it was built you'll increase the number of flight directly over central London which I thought we were trying to avoid both from a noise and a safety point of view (the approach and departures would be over central London). We'd also have to have a serious replanning of International airspace as this would affect the Dutch etc..

But if it this new hub was Boris Island then there would be just as much if not more noise from the new BJA (BoJo Airport)* over central London just slightly more to the East than the West. See above for more details.

*Can't call it BoJo Intenational really as BJI exists already

Recently I was woken up early one morning because some builders were bunging rubble onto a metal truck bed, making an awful noise at 8am on my day off. It was only whilst I was peering out of the front door to see where the noise was coming from did I notice that there was a jumbo jet flying ovehead, and I'm in Hammersmith & Fulham for the record.

I used to live in SW8, right underneath the flightpaths for LHR in the morning, and LCY in the afternoon (most of the time, anyway). When I needed to get up early, I could generally rely on the first flights being right on time, but... To be honest, in an area of heavy traffic, constant sirens and generally noisy people (goodness me, but Londoners like to make themselves heard to all in a wide radius), the aircraft noise was barely perceptible.

Now, out in the flatlands of Bedfordshire, things are a lot quieter (I do live next to a major railway line, but the noise from that is in short bursts). On a Sunday morning, you can hear the phone ring at the builder's depot half a mile away. You get the odd balloon flight passing overhead - you can hear the burners and conversation. Anyway, you get the picture. When the odd flight bound for LTN or STN passes overhead (low enough to see, but certainly not on approach), it has a much greater impact - enough to make you look up and wonder what on earth is going on (admittedly, it's quieter than the police helicopter, which comes out whenever there's an accident on the A1 or a tresspasser on the railway).

I suppose my point is that aircraft passing over cities have a lesser impact (at certain heights) than on rural and semi-rural areas.

While I'm sure *some* flights would still be flying over London, it would be much less than we have today and those flights would be at much higher altitude - a Thames airport would be 35 miles from Central London.

But if the Thames airport does prove impractical or too expensive, then perhaps the only other realistic option is Stansted. We could reuse the existing runway, build 2 new full length runways, and leave space for a 4th, while still disrupting and displacing less people than LHR. Take a look at BER for inspiration.

A new rail link could be built along the M11 corridor connecting at Stratford to both HS1 and Crossrail. Journey time on the express service from St. Pancras would be under 25 minutes - comparable to the Heathrow Express - and the amount of tunnelling required would not be excessive.

At present, I am not far away from you. Okay on the outskirts of a city, well for now. The planes are noticable. I often look onto flightradar, seeing where the people are going. If I retire early to bed the 11pm flight that passes over does disturb me.

We also seem to attract the police helicopter which is noisy.

As you are also aware, the M1 is very busy. My suggestion is BHX needs to be used much more, so some traffice in cars does not need to slow down the motorway.

I like this idea of a new 4 runway hub in Berkshire/Oxfordshire. Would be cheaper than Boris Island and would mean there would be less of a huge shift in workers etc.

Delighted to see Greening has been chucked out of the Transport job. We now appear to have an unbiased Derbyshire MP as our Transport Secretary now who also has a fear of flying. Rather that than a biased anti airport campaigner.

It's hardly fair to describe her as anti-airport. She's anti Heathrow expansion. Which, to be fair, reflects the view of the vast majority of people in her constituency.

I agree that the flights would be higher for Boris Island over London but the person who said that approach and departures will be over London was the head of NATS Mr Deakins. If anyone should know where the flights would be going it's him you'd have thought.

Canary Wharf is exactly equidistant between Heathrow and Boris Island. The height aircraft pass over there when Heathrow is on westerlies, they will pass over when Boris Island is on Easterlies, carrying on down overhead Woolwich, Bexleyheath, Dartford, Gravesend, etc. Now if you think these places are going to accept what the west Londoners apparently find insufferable without the most enormous fight .....

The only upside for the Conservatives is that most of these places vote Labour.

The bizarre thing is that the approach to the third runway passes well to the north of her constituency, overhead Hammersmith and well to the north of the river. It won't be heard by her voters at all. I suspect they haven't even realised this.

The conservatives will propose a new runway at heathrow at the next election. Labour will oppose this, as all labour does is say how nasty the conservatives are. This was witnessed this week at the paralympics and even on here. Sadly the uk public will vote for labour at the next election. No runway for another 10 years at Heathrow.

No it isn't.

As the crow flies, Canary Wharf is about 19 miles from Heathrow. It'd be over 30 miles from the Thames Estuary airport.

However, in terms of travel time, Boris Island could indeed be favourable. Assuming there was an express service from Stratford on HS1, it would likely be a lot quicker than getting to Heathrow.

While I'm no big Labour supporter, I sure won't be voting Tory if they're pushing a 3rd runway.

We need a bold, forward-thinking solution to the aviation hub/capacity issues. Not an expensive, half length, band-aid fix for an overcrowded airport in the wrong place.