Have your say on Heathrow Airport’s handling of noise complaints

In September this year, over 7 million passengers travelled through Heathrow Airport.  This was the first time that monthly passenger figures were higher than before travel restrictions from the Covid-19 pandemic.

As traffic returns to previous levels, my work as the independent Chair of the Noise and Airspace Community Forum (NACF) continues at pace.  The forum engages with representatives of the local community and with the relevant aviation industry and government stakeholders to identify their issues and concerns related to noise, airspace, and runway operations at Heathrow. 

With the Council for Independent Scrutiny of Heathrow Airport (CISHA) and other engagement forums, we challenge Heathrow to be a better neighbour.  

In the past year, NACF has considered issues surrounding noise attitudes and discussed airspace modernisation and the noise insulation scheme.  We have held deep dives into the roles and responsibilities of government and industry bodies, and into night flights. We have worked with the airport to develop a new data dashboard, and fed into the drafting of the airport’s new Noise Action Plan.

One of the issues that has been regularly raised with me by members of the NACF forum is around how the airport handles noise complaints.  To consider this more carefully, we have commissioned an external independent review.

The review will assess the performance of the noise complaints function against their agreed standards, review the policies and procedures that are in place, assess them against the outputs produced by the noise complaints team, and provide recommendations for improvement.    

We have commissioned Verita to deliver this project. Verita specialises in complaints handling and conducting reviews and are recognised as a leading expert in the field of complaints handling.

The review will consider how the current approach to noise complaints measures up against best practice; how closely activity follows the procedures that are set out; and whether the process is run efficiently.  It will also look at whether the actions result in timely and consistent outcomes; the quality of interaction with users; and whether monitoring and reporting of delivery is adequate and timely.

The project will engage with local communities and interested stakeholders to review and understand concerns around Heathrow's noise complaints process and identify areas for potential additional project work.

We have discussed the project with members of the NACF forum, but we also want to invite others from the wider community who are impacted by noise from Heathrow Airport to contribute their views.

If you’d like to take part, please let us know your thoughts on any or all of the questions below, and we will make sure your views are considered by the team working on the project.

In relation to Heathrow Airport’s noise complaints project:

1. What do you think of the current process for making noise complaints?

2. What are you looking for when you make a noise complaint (what response/outcome would you like)?

3. Have you had any particularly good or bad experiences of the complaints process?

4. Do you have any suggestions for how the noise complaints process could be improved?

5. Do you have any comments on how noise complaints are currently publicly reported?

Please email your thoughts to info@cisha.org  by Wednesday 25th  October.

Our aim is to make the process work better for people affected by noise from Heathrow Airport, thank you for reading and for taking part.  

Andreas Lambrianou 
NACF Chair