Over the last 3 months planes on route to London City Airport have been flying at very low levels. The noise, disturbance & pollution has increased to way beyond pre covid levels. I have recorded planes especially in December flying at 1200 feet, they are supposed to be flying at 2000feet & above. On average the planes in the lasted 3 months have been flying at 15000 feet. Over the past week planes have been flying over every 2-3 minutes for most of the day. We also have double fly overs with planes bound for Heathrow airport, even had planes taking off from Heathrow something I have seen before. Planes fly over each other with barely 2000 feet between them. I find this practice is very worrying with such a populated area below.
I have complained to London City airport With all the details flight numbers & altitudes. Complaint officer replied disputing altitude levels so I sent her proof which she asked for. I have had no reply but over the weekend planes have been flying nearer 2000 feet, still noisy when fly directly over the house.
Is there anything being done about this, I know there had been some work done on the change in flight paths which were changed in 2016 without any consultation with residents who would be most affected.
I know the Forest Hill Society were very involved pre convid. Is there anything happening now? I have contacted our MP Ellie Reeves in the past & plan to contact her again
London City Airport complaint
Yes the London City planes are over us as usual when in east wind conditions, as in the past few days.
I’m not sure where you are getting your height data from? Flight Radar is not regarded as reliable by NATS, London City say their app TravisLCY is accurate. The heights shown on the two systems sometimes differ.
The Forest Hill Society remains very involved in trying to challenge and hold the airport to account. I gave an update on City here at the end of 2021.
FHSoc attends and contribute to the quarterly Consultative Committee meetings. We have also provided detailed notes and critique on City’s very early proposals (not yet public) for complete change to their flight path systems.
We have close ties and collaborate with HACAN East and several other campaign groups on both Heathrow and London City noise and flight path issues.
In November 2021 Lewisham’s Mayor accepted our recommendations that the council become much more involved to represent residents in the new flight path design matters, and committed that the key meetings at Heathrow and London City would be attended by Environmental Health at officer/ councillor level. Having acquired fairly expert knowledge ourselves over time, we provide briefing to Lewisham - with the aim that in time their expertise will become such that this would no longer be necessary.
We regularly provide briefing to Ellie Reeves MP and Janet Daby MP.
In the short term, City will not change anything. Our hope for real change is through the regulatory process they have to follow (CAP1616) which specifies exactly what they have to do in order to get an airspace change approved. This includes engagement and consultation, and we had a lively conversation with them about their approach to this at their Consultative Committee just 2 days ago.
And I should add that Tim does a fantastic job at this. 
Thank you.
Thank you for your reply, it is very helpful. I have been trying to find out up to date information on what has been happening with noisy planes heading to London City airport. I couldn’t find anything on here since 2020. It might be just me but there seems to be much less community information on this site.
I will look at the monitoring service you suggested. Planes were definitely flying at very low levels over my house, myself & other neighbours were disturbed by the noise & intrusion in our homes & gardens.
Please could you let me know how I can keep up dated about this issue.
Thank you for all the work & effort you are doing on the behalf of SE23 residents.
Everyone affected, please lodge complaints every day you are disturbed:
And get on the HACAN East mailing list
I think you’ve got a typo in “covid” there.
Thank you for the information about HACAN EAST.
I will continue to complain, I hope others affected also make complaints. It makes a difference, all complaints are logged.
You can read about @ThorNogson 's latest updates on airspace redesign on the Forest Hill Society website. Great work Tim!
Does anyone ever receive interesting replies from London City?
Normally I receive “Sorry to hear you have been disturbed by aircraft noise. Your complaint has been logged”
But one recent reply suggested that we were lucky compared to other areas because we ‘only’ have 30% of LCY arrivals disturbing us owing to the prevailing Westerly wind. I’m not sure about the accuracy of that percentage. It may be correct that Westerly is the prevailing direction, but in the summer there are long periods of Easterly winds, and in the summer residents want to have their windows open, and be outdoors, so will be more exposed to the disturbance.
I have also had some more detailed replies to my complaints to London City Airport. The replies have a slight edge to them these days & include some facts that can’t be correct. There is never an acceptance that the facts I am stating could be right. I have had a couple of complaints which after the acknowledgment & complaint number there is no further reply.
I have lived in Forest Hill for nearly 50years, have always lived with planes over head heading for Heathrow. Since 2016 planes heading for London City airport are fly well below the agreed 2,000 feet & the noise disturbance is not acceptable. They also seem to be flying the same pathway everyday which is new & so much intrusive. Embraer planes are the nosiest & most frequently flying on route to London City. British Airways are the worse & most frequent.
I have had a similar reply about 30% fly over with easterly winds. As you say this usually happens as soon as the weather improves & the sun comes out which is even with the British weather is more than 30%. We can’t use our garden, conversation is impossible with noisy planes flying overhead every 2-3minutes at times.
It’s called Performance Based Navigation. A flight plan has been selected for incoming flights to LCY and there is no deviation at all, so the same residents have the all the aircraft directly overhead - all of them.
I think it’s a cynical political ploy - by disturbing fewer households (albeit more intensively) - you can argue that it’s socially responsible. I’m sure LCY will use this argument if they haven’t already.
Noise pollution is not a mere inconvenience, but a serious health and environmental issue. Nor is it an unavoidable part of urban life. In recent years, there has been a great mobilisation of resources to combat air pollution. Cities need a similar campaign waged against the cacophony that is harming people and planet.
Can you point me in the direction of this data source please?
Thank you.
Interesting that the FT article says responsible for the ‘premature’ death of 7 mn, the report headline makes no mention of ‘premature’. There is a big difference to being responsible for premature deaths and deaths,either way not great reading.
Presumably if something specific kills you then it’s implicitly premature. You don’t really see headlines like ‘person prematurely killed in plane crash’ - the word premature is redundant.
If you have a pre existing health condition such as heart disease, and have a heart attack while doing a sky dive was it the pre existing illness or the sky dive that caused your death?
Both would be premature
Can you tell me how long I am going to live please? I would like to know so if I have a turn prior to the answer you give me, I’ll know I’ve gone prematurely.
… and yet neither would require the word premature in a headline 
Anyway I wasn’t aware that City offered sky diving tours. This would be a great way to get home early.
“Drop me off over Forest Hill captain, eh?”
Eh? they don’t.
I am also sceptical about this data, but the story is about noise pollution, and the fact that - compared to the efforts to deal with particulate pollution - almost nothing is being done, ESPECIALLY IN LEWISHAM.
This is my point, it is the article that refers to the questionable air pollution data. Why use questionable data to illustrate a point you (the journalist) are trying to make in a piece? What advice would you give Lewisham council to start tackling the problem?
They could start by offering the same level of noise enforcement protection offered by other (equally broke) London Boroughs.
You are aware that the council can’t deal with complaints about, aircraft or rail noise and traffic noise on the public highway? So in general we would be talking about noise coming from commercial and residential premises, have you got examples we could give to the council to investigate?
In regards to noise from residential properties, I don’t think there is a way the council will address this if it’s a one-off issue. There is no number to call, just a form to fill out with an aim to contact you within 48 hours. Essentially if someone is still creating noise on a one-off occasion at 4am there is nothing you can do about it.
The council advices you not to speak to your neighbour about it until after it has finished…
It’s another area where anti-social behaviour is in effect no longer policed unless it occurs on a very regular basis. I assume within the council’s budget, it’s not deemed a priority, or important.
I’ve always assumed premature refers basically to passing away before your expected life expectancy. So any factor that leads to you dying before this expected age contributes to a premature death. some of those factors are preventable (eg some health conditions due to diet, smoking etc), others are preventable but need group change (eg pollution, air quality) and some are simply accidents, some of which may be preventable (enhanced Health and safety etc).
That’s what I thought, so how we can define what influence other factors, apart from very obvious ones like your parachute not opening have on the timing of our death is nearly impossible to quantify.
Well I’m guessing here, but I assume you look at data and make conclusions. Nothing is is 100%, but I guess an obvious example might be that smoking might cause a premature death.
So you take 1,000,000 people who smoke and 1,000,000 who don’t and compare stats. Clearly you would also need to cross reference with other factors, and you might say 2,3,4 factors contributed but you can start to see things that have an affect.
So you do the same for people who live in areas of high pollution, and whatever other factors (I assume some / most of this is done in reverse, ie you look at people with premature deaths and look for similarities in lifestyles etc and see what common factors come out). That might not always conclusively tell you why a person died prematurely, but it will show that many people that die prematurely are exposed to X, therefore X should be addressed, and where it is, does it have an effect on life expectancy for people in that group.
Someone brighter than me will hopefully be along shortly who actually knows what they are talking about!
There are different ways of dealing with things. For example, the Council apparently wrote one letter in response to the original consultation about the London City concentrated flightpath which is now disturbing their residents in Catford, Forest Hill and other areas. They did not follow up. Instead of being passive respondents they could have advocated for this not to go ahead. We have a Lewisham Mayor, a Council, a City Mayor, local MP and GLA reps all from the same Party. They could have worked together on a campaign to stop this happening. But nothing was done. This is the point of the article: lots has been done to reduce air (particle) pollution, but nothing to reduce noise pollution.
Yes, the Council does not have specific statutory responsibility in respect of noise from aircraft, roads and rail. But that does not mean they should take no interest, they could still take noise measurements, so they have data to hand about what is going on. The Council does many things it is not legally obliged to do, and this should be something they are proactive about as it affects so many people. Don’t they also have an overall duty of care?
If you check back to the original post you’ll see that (at the FHSoc AGM) we got the Mayor to commit to engage in discussion on this topic:
Sadly I think it’s not due to lack of interest, the issue remains one of money. They may be ‘all from the same Party’ but the overall funding for local government is down for 10+ years and Lewisham’s budget is down from £400m+ to £240m and of that almost all of it goes on social care. There’s barely any money to do anything new, it’s mostly focused on keeping things functioning.
There are a couple of pollution meters dotted about, but no chance to get much new monitoring equipment installed at the moment. I have got a new contact in the transport department though and I’m going to try to get in touch with them.
Five years after the introduction of the contentious flightpath that directly impacts his constituents, the mayor agrees to think about representing their interests. Why so late? Why not pre-emptive and proactive?
No, the Council does manage to prioritise things for which there is no specific statutory responsibility or funding: for example there is no statute that says the council must have a “positive ageing project” or that Lewisham must be a “Borough of Sanctuary”. I am not suggesting that these things are not important, I am suggesting that if the Mayor and Cabinet were interested they could make resources available.
If you look at the Directorates and Structure of the Council’s Management Structure, Head of Environmental Health Services is low in the hierarchy:
- Top level: Chief Exec
- Executive Director for Housing,Regeneration and Public Realm
- Director of Public Realm
- This tier includes Head of Environment Health
I cannot judge whether all the roles listed are necessary and productive, but I am confident that environmental health services could be given higher priority. The Council could start measuring noise if there was political will, but there isn’t.
What BS! You know it’s unjustifiable when they start saying it’s necessary because they have to ‘modernise’ the route.
Flight Radar 24 offers Calibrated Altitude and GPS Altitude. It would be helpful if you could explain the difference. Is one regarded as more accurate, or are they measuring different things? The Calibrated Altitude for inbound LCY flights is frequently below 2,000 ft for aircraft flying over Catford and Forest Hill. I haven’t used flight Radar 24 for a couple of years, but checking in this afternoon, all flights are are below 2,000 ft over our area.
If I could I would 
. What I can say is that the CAA , London City and Heathrow have all told me at various times that Flightradar24 is not a reliable source of altitude accuracy. Rely on TravisLCY for City and Heathrow’s own online tracking systems. Both take their primary data from what they see as accurate sources.
Both also have a historic tracking function, so if you see a plane that you’d like to measure altitude for simply backtrack on the relevant airport system to that time and watch the plane fly over SE23. If you want to prove to them a particular low height you can freeze the image and take a screenshot using their own system.
Not saying it’s easy, but I think using their own data avoids doubt or any wiggle room.
If it’s any consolation, just had a look at Windy.com, wind direction will change tonight, so should be free from the LCY arrivals for a week. However, we get the Heathrow 27s arrivals again.
The runway utilisation % are reported accurately every quarter and are available to view on the Consultative Committee website. Search for LCACC.
The average % of easterly winds varies from quarter to quarter and the overall average figure from year to year. The figures are also reported in the airports annual report, available on their website.
But one of our constant complaints is that the average figures do not adequately capture that easterly winds often mean clear blue skies and periods of high pressure, which is often the warm spring summer conditions when we have windows open and use our gardens more.
One such period of around 2 weeks is just coming to an end.
Here’s an example of a quarterly report. In it you see that in some seasons the % is way over 30%. But the annual average might still be 30%.
It will be so nice to have some relief from low flying, noisy London City airport bound planes overhead every 2-3 minutes at times. Unfortunately Heathrow bound planes take their place when there are westerly winds at least they mostly fly at around 4,000 feet & are less intrusive. We often have both Heathrow & London City airport bound planes overhead at the same time, so double noise & pollution for us humans below. On one occasion last week, we had planes taken off from Heathrow flying overhead as well. All at different altitudes but a bit disconcerting living under all these aircraft flightpaths which weren’t there before 2016.
Yes, hence why I said “unfortunately we get the Heathrow 27s again”. As in they land on runways 27L and 27R.
I recently complained to Heathrow about an incoming aircraft at around midnight. The response:
“Heathrow has some of the strictest restrictions of any hub airport in Europe in terms of movements permitted between 11:30pm and 6:00am. Heathrow is restricted to 5,800 take-offs and landings a year during these times.”
Oh, only 5,800 per year, that’s OK then. Seriously, where is the protection from noise pollution?
I often feel as if I’m living in a different Forest Hill than many of the users on this forum. I sit in my garden and occasionally see airplanes very high in the sky, and would certainly argue they do not fly over 2-3 minutes a day. They do make noise, but I am able to speak normally to the person across from me. I’m wondering if others forget that they live in a major global city and not in the country. I am actually shocked by the energy and time spent communicating with London City Airport and Heathrow about this. Surely, don’t you think the noise pollution from the South Circular to be louder?
I’m not here to be glib but like I said, I’m shocked by the energies and perceptions of the neighbourhood.
Yeah I’m kinda intrigued by this all as it really doesn’t seem so bad where I am in HOP. But I wonder whether it’s because the se23 area changes in altitudes.
This means you are almost certainly in one of the parts of the postcode not under the very concentrated flight path of City Airport. We moved to Lowther Hill in 2014 before it existed and apart from Covid it has been problematic directly over our back garden since 2016. Lucky you!
Nope, sorry. I’m a few streets away from Lowther Hill and have been for some time. I find the general street noise of our neighbourhood far more polluting than air traffic overhead. I’m not saying there aren’t planes overhead or I can’t hear them, but the forum would make one believe we live next to the runway. I barely noticed the planes until this thread and now that I do, I still think it’s a low priority considering the other polluters that are right here in Forest Hill. (I should also note, I probably often don’t notice most of the planes still because I don’t think they’re that loud or every 2-3 minutes).
Also, I do move around the neighbourhood and can report not being bothered by the sight or sound in other areas of FH.
I should note I am also underneath a flight path, so I do see these planes throughout the day. I manage to enjoy my garden, so yes, I suppose I’m lucky.
The best place for plane spotting in SE23 is the car park behind Sainsbury’s. Come and sit next the the sad silver Mercedes that’s been abandoned for a couple of years now with a sign saying ‘will be gone in 2 days’ akin to the ‘back in 5 minutes’ signs we so love in shop fronts. You won’t be able to hear the planes due to the constant drone of refrigeration units from diesel lorries idling while waiting to unload.
You can easily see both approaches - watch with baited breath as the flightradar24 tracks bi-sect in 2D and see for real how the A380’s pass a couple of thousand feet above the Embraer 190s.
If that doesn’t grab your fancy then Horniman Gardens is also nice - the extra 250ft in height puts you that much closer to the planes!
No, that’s fine. I’m happy to spot them from my garden. It’s far more preferable than sitting in the Sainsbury’s car park. In fact one has gone over as I read your reply. I don’t need to waste my time on flightradar when I could finish my book and sip coffee before getting back to work. Thanks!
I guess it’s all subjective. I’ve never been bothered by aircraft noise, but the rhythmic bass from music makes me feel physically ill. It affects my heart.
I used to enjoy seeing the planes go over (especially Concorde!) but I was sitting with a visitor in my garden once and when a plane went over he scowled at it and very pointedly stopped talking till it had gone. But I wouldnt have even registered it if not for his reaction (which I found a bit odd, as he does holiday by plane).
I’m with you @marymck. I especially find this irritating on early weekend mornings when I abide by the unwritten code that we’d like a little bit more peace and a little less rhythmic bass parked outside a window from an idle car, etc.
I suppose I fall in the camp with you of not registering these plane sounds and find it strange to spend time sending off emails to LCY and LHR when there are other far more in our face and ear noises happening at street level. C’est la vie.
I’m with you on this Mary; I’m not bothered by the aircraft, but I don’t understand why people who feel the need to play music very loudly have such appalling taste and I really miss Concorde.
I have to admit that, where I live, I used to get more noise from the early morning buses struggling along the south circular than from planes. The switch to hybrid has improved my sleep a lot. But there are occasional motorbikes and airplanes at 4am or 5am that will wake me, despite the windows being shut (the worst bikes are noisier than the planes). And the early morning planes are much reduced since Covid. The problem was it wasn’t just one plane, but they were 4 minutes behind each other - lined up to fly into Heathrow for connections to other European destinations before 9am.
And I’ve definitely sat in the garden of All Inn One pub unable to speak for 30 seconds due to a plane going overhead.
Can’t understand your ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude. A little empathy would be nice. You are very lucky not to have low flying flightpath over your house & garden everyday when we have easterly winds which happens most days in spring & summer.
I have lived in my house in Forest Hill for over 40 years & have always had Heathrow’s planes over head & I to enjoyed seeing concord. Heathrow planes are quieter & fly at a higher altitude around 4000 feet.
All changed in 2016 when London City Airport changed its arrival flightpath to a much lower altitude using very noisy planes that can land on its short runways. Lewisham residents were not informed of the proposed change, there was no consultation.
It is not only Forest Hill that is affected, other areas are also affected & complaining to the relevant authorities. There are local MP’s involved as well.
I object to your statement about wasting time complaining, flightpaths are under review so you might get low flying planes disturbing you & your families everyday life if the flightpath changes to over your house.
Finally aircraft pollution is a real problem & falls on us below.
Traffic & aircraft pollution are both very polluting, some experts say that aircraft pollution is as bad in London as traffic pollution.
Le sigh, I pity those at LCY, LHR and the MPs who are at the receiving end of your copious email complaints. Perhaps, you didn’t read my post where I did indeed say I was under one of the regular flight paths and am concerned about noise pollution (I’ve not mentioned air pollution as this is a different topic to touch on).
I grew up underneath an actual low flying flight path of an international airport and SE23 is small potatoes. And I mean all areas of SE23, not just an individual garden or at the horniman.
Perhaps, you should keep a decibel reader and see that the sound of our actual street level noise is far more noticeable than the planes that fly overhead. I mean that seriously and not flippantly.
I will stop engaging with this thread as I don’t enjoy the general trend this forum has for picking away at mundane things. Any further complaint to me will go unread and unreplied to.
Does anyone know of any way to crowdsource noise readings?
I found this Crowdsource noise levels of restaurants and bars in your city - SciStarter which is a nice idea but focused around bars an restaurants.
There are plenty of decibel meters in app stores, but it would be interesting to see noise level comparisons right under the flight path versus a few streets away and other parts of town. Don’t forget that sound propagates as an inverse square of distance so the further away you are it gets quieter relatively much quicker, so some people might not quite understand the issue of being right under the flight path.
The issue here is that the approach is such a narrow corridor that you either live right under all of it, or you’re never any closer to it, so it doesn’t appear to be such a big deal.
I wonder if we can organised a shared Google maps page and drop some pins and geotag some readings. Would be good to do planes, trains and automobiles as a comparison.
Heathrow or City?
Obviously you’re not under the CONCENTRATED flightpath that others are referring to, where things are as described by those affected.
This is not affecting a whole area, this is affecting those who are directly under the flightpath.
That would be a good idea as it would be a huge help to people who might be contemplating moving to one of those streets affected by plane noise if that’s the sort of noise that bothers them.
But I’d say it’s about more than decibels. Like I said earlier, it’s rhythmic bass music that bothers me and that’s not about the decibels.
And children screaming. Why? I don’t mean when they’re scared. I mean the look at me, look at me I’m having fun and my parents are indoors with the door shut or just don’t care, so I will scream and scream and …
We had one child in Mount Ash Road who did it all summer long. Eventually they grew out of it, but then another one started. Bliss when they stop though. Makes you appreciate school time…
Sorry for the digression.
I think this would be a good start but I suspect it is more than just dB at play here. Never bothered me but I am not a light sleeper and have also lived much closer to LHR so perhaps used to it. For someone who is a light sleeper then I can see an issue. Also if close to where they turn can exacerbate things due to the extra turbulence and acceleration, more of a change in timbre then noise level from my own observation.
It is unusual in that London allows flights over densely populated areas. Other world cities plan things much better so odd that there is resistance to building airports in better places.
Surprisingly our former mayor did have one good idea. And new airport for London in the Thames Estuary made so much sense, not just by creating an airport suitable for the size of a city like London, but for the ability to create a super port combining rail, air and sea. And flights could be diverted away from London overflight.
Yes, I do.
For a few years I have used Explane , developed initially for Schipol campaigners but now useable worldwide which allows you to measure 10 seconds of airplane noise with your smartphone. It has been calibrated against very accurate monitoring equipment and is accurate enough for this purpose.
I tried to encourage others locally to have a go a few years back but there wasn’t much interest.
If you look at the data on the website you will see UK decibel readings, listed by city and by postcode. There are quite a few historic readings from SE23. Many of them are from my back garden or the top of Horniman Gardens.
The app also identifies the actual aircraft and its destination, and automatically assigns the postcode of the place you are standing.
ExPlane is the app to register aviation noise
Available at Google Play and Appstore now.
The app gives you the possibility to record airplanes and measure their Decibels to give a real picture of the noise nuisance experienced by residents living near airports. This gives residents, action groups, politicians and the press the data they need to convince politicians of the seriousness of this nuisance.
Thee are problems with recording a max decibel like this, in that airports use more sophisticated average decibel metrics which disguise the actual disturbance people experience.
The difference is like the difference between an hour either with Concorde overhead just once at 100db and no other noise or an Embraer overhead at 65 db 15 times in an hour which does happen.
Thanks Tim - you ExPlaned that so well I’ve downloaded the app
I’m about 2000 feet away from the South Circular, the railway and London City flight path. Following suggestions from above I’ve compared noise levels from different sources in my back garden.
Background noise. Birdsong. Seldom annoying. Green parakeets sometimes go on a bit.
South Circular. Nope. Nada.
Railway. Negligible. Can sometimes hear a train in right wind conditions.
My road. Very occasional bike or siren, hardly ever notice.
City airport. 55-75 db each time every time.
Pre COvid there were about 17 City planes per hour in each the 3-4 peak hours of their day.
Ah - interesting - so you’re 2000 feed away, planes are 2000 feet up so you’re (quick root of x^2 + y^2) almost 3000 feet away from the planes or 50% further as I’m right underneath. Something something exponential decay, 6db at each distance doubling (according to the inter web - is that right?) means I should be getting about 68-78db - really we should co-ordinate and measure the same planes at the same time. I will need an appropriate activist t-shirt. Any recommendations?
