Civil Aviation Bill

I am aware of the 10-point plan and that not everyone is satisfied with it. I am extremely conscious that even now not everyone is happy with NEMA’s performance, despite the improvements. We need to continue to bear down on it, to work with it and to ensure that the improvements continue. The continuous descent approach, which seeks to minimise the noise of arriving flights, is achieved by 70 per cent. of aircraft. However, NEMA is not complacent. It is aware that it has to keep driving for even better performance. It has indicated that it wishes to take advantage of the noise control powers proposed in clause 4 to take tougher local action to protect the noise environment. I do not doubt that it will. This year’s master plan, due later this year, will recast NEMA’s 10-point plan on noise amelioration, setting out details of its further plans to minimise noise impacts and to respond to community concerns. The results of a recently announced MORI poll, described by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley, clearly show majority support for the airport in its locality and that concern about its impact on noise centred on those areas affected by recent routing changes. It is true that the airspace change at NEMA means that some people are overflown more frequently than before, and those people will, of course, be dissatisfied with that state of affairs, but I ask hon. Members to remember that overall the route changes have significantly reduced the number of people overflown at a height that is likely to cause disturbance. The airport is doing its best to engage with the local community. It operates an open-door policy to show its operations to those who are interested and to talk through their concerns. I urge any hon. Member who has spoken and who has not made a visit to contact the managing director of the airport. I look forward to meeting MPs in the vicinity later this week to discuss the issues.