A whole stack of air trouble?
Plans to move Luton Airport's holding stack to Chronicle Country revealed
Silence is golden - but plans to relocate planes waiting to land at Luton Airport to the skies of Chronicle Country could make it a distant memory.
National Air Traffic Services (NATS) has proposed major changes to the flightpaths and holding stacks for nearby airports including Luton and Stanstead.
Included in the proposal are plans to move Luton's holding stack - where planes circle one above another as they wait for clearance to land - to the skies above Gamlingay and the Hatleys, and just a stone's throw away from Potton.
This could see up to eight planes circling from 7,000ft, where the level of noise for residents below would be around 60 decibels.
And NATS predicts that by 2009 an average of 10.3 planes will use Luton airport an hour, 25 an hour at peak times, with this figure set to rise in the future.
Gamlingay district councillor Sebastian Kindersley has expressed deep concern over the plans.
He said: "It's obviously a very distressing and worrying proposal from our point of view. Although we accept there are a lot of planes flying over already, a stack is different because the planes remain in the same place going round.
"That creates problems not only of noise pollution but also what might be coming out of those planes in terms of pollution."
And he also expressed fears that the planes could cause conflict with the gliding centre and airfields in the area.
A document from NATS stated that all eight spots would rarely be occupied, and that often there would be no need for aircraft to hold at all.
For your chance to find out how the proposals affect you, and have your say, visit www.consultation.nats.co.uk
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Weather for Biggleswade
Saturday 04 February 2012
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