HC Deb 03 November 1972 vol 845 cc583-94

4.0 p.m.

Mr. Julian Ridsdale (Harwich)

I welcome this opportunity to discuss certain questions regarding the third London airport at Maplin which, in spite of several public speeches by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and several briefings by his Department, are still causing concern to many people, especially in North-East Essex, who live close to the proposed new airport.

North-East Essex, especially the seaside towns, is a residential area with a large retired population. The people there are at present able to enjoy an area completely undisturbed by aircraft noise. Naturally, the building of an aerodrome even 15 miles away as the Brent goose flies is something which many living in North-East Essex fear will disturb their peace and concord. The question at the back of their minds is: Is life with Concorde to be as peaceful?

I welcome the way in which during the past few weeks the Under-Secretary of State has been giving factual information which has enabled far greater light to be shed upon the darkness of many people's fears. What a pity that that policy could not have been followed from the start. A lot of misunderstandings would have been avoided. Leakages from the bureaucratic machine, even when unauthentic, are the worst way to arouse fear, and we have had them in full. As we know, they have, quite naturally, been taken up by the Daily Telegraph and the local Press, and this is one of the reasons why I asked for the Adjournment debate today.

Fortunately, the recent publication of maps, the indication of flight paths and the marking of stacking areas have gone a long way to deal with the problem in a rational rather than an emotional way. I greatly welcome the Minister's assurance, his categorical assurance, that aircraft noise in North-East Essex will be minimal. But, unfortunately, people are so cynical nowadays that even categorical assurances are taken with a pinch of salt.

I welcome the news that there is to be no over-flying of my constituency, but I know that there are many who would like a practical demonstration of the aircraft paths. Is it possible to arrange this? Have the flight paths at present planned had any practical assessment, or are they purely theoretical?

In pressing the Minister on the question of noise, I say at once that our problems in North-East Essex are small compared with those in much closer constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck), in his excellent opening speech in the debate on the Address, rightly said that, while agreeing with the siting of Maplin, we are determined to see that it is so organised that it causes no major inconvenience to those living in North-East Essex. He, like my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Brian Harrison), is prevented by a previous engagement from being present to support me today, but I welcome the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir Bernard Braine), and I am gladly doing my best to keep my speech a little short so that he may have an opportunity to bring forward points vital for his constituency.

Critics of Maplin are concerned not only about noise, and this is why I welcome an opportunity to raise more fundamental issues. First, will the Minister answer the question of need? It is said that the vast majority of charter flights are relatively short flights particularly suitable for the next generation of airbus with short take-off and landing capabilities. These, it is claimed, would be most conveniently arranged from small airports around the country near major centres of population.

It is possible, too, that in 10 to 15 years we shall have vertical take-off and landing passenger and transport aircraft. Would this not make Maplin redundant, or is the airport being built with Concorde in mind? If Concorde is used at Maplin, what will the flight paths be? Will they be out to sea, and what percentage of other take-offs and landings will be out to sea?

Other questions have been raised, particularly the question of cost. Will the Minister give the estimated cost of the airport? Who will pay for it? How much will come from loan capital and how much from the Government—in other words, the taxpayer? How much employment is it likely to bring to people in Essex, and indeed over the whole country, in the next 10 years?

Will the Minister say a word or two about the proposed container terminal? How much traffic is it estimated it will handle? Will it concentrate chiefly on the long sea routes? Is it likely to affect trade from the ports of Parkestone, Harwich and Felixstowe? I hope that these ports will be given every help to expand their short sea routes and that this will be borne in mind when the roads are built from the Midlands; otherwise there will be far too heavy a concentration of container traffic in the Maplin area. It is therefore vital that we press on with trunking the roads to the Stour ports as quickly as possible and do not allow the planning of routes to Maplin to interfere with this. Particularly I underline the necessity of going ahead with trunking the road to Harwich as quickly as possible. But naturally, any improvement of the poor communication by road out of East London, compared to the West and North, will be very welcome.

Which will be the main railway terminal for Maplin, as Liverpool Street is severely over-stretched? Can my hon. Friend say anything about the new city which it is planned to build in 10 years' time? Where is it to be? It is said that it will involve the building of 9,000 houses a year, and it is claimed that no new town has been built a at rate of more than 1,000 houses a year. Is not this likely to put a great strain on local government resources to the detriment of other areas?

I wish to make two further points which affect my constituency. Will the Minister assure me that the building of the proposed oil terminal will in no way affect the beaches of North-East Essex, especially as it is planned for supertankers up to 500,000 tons to use it? Does the Minister realise that critics are now saying that the proposed oil terminal is similar to the one at the Cape of Good Hope where it is said that the beaches nearby are black with oil? I am sure that my hon. Friend realises the anxiety which this must cause to the many holiday resorts along the Essex coast, particularly in North-East Essex.

My final point concerns the question of wild life, which is very close not only to my heart but to the hearts of many people in North-East Essex, whether they be wildfowlers, birdwatchers or naturalists. What plans are being made to look after the Brent geese? What studies are being made about this, because it can affect so much the wild life of East Anglia and North-East Essex since the kind of food which the wild life, particularly the Brent geese, need is limited? I hope that the Minister will be able to say that projects on this subject have already started.

These are some of the questions which are being asked. I am sure it is in the interest of all of us that the Minister answers them with as much detail as possible because I want this problem to be faced in a rational, not an emotional. way.

4.7 p.m.

Sir Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)

I am glad to support the representations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale), and I trust that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will be able to give him the assurances for which he asked.

It is manifest that the Maplin project, which I imagine must be the greatest single civil engineering project ever undertaken in this country, has profound economic, social and planning implications for communities far beyond the confines of South-East Essex. It will affect, for good or ill, very large numbers of people in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich, elsewhere in eastern Essex and across the estuary in North-East Kent. But the fact remains—and I think that the House knows it—that the main impact is bound to be felt by my constituents and our immediate neighbours living in the county borough of Southend-on-Sea, not only because they will suffer the full impact of any noise nuisance which arises but because the access routes to London, with all the noise and discomfort which a major motorway and new rail link must cause, must pass through the narrow corridor bounded by the Thames and the Crouch and where the majority of the additional population which the airport and its ancillary development must bring to South-East Essex will have to live.

Accordingly I should like to ask my hon. Friend the following questions. First of all, when does he expect to receive the report of the consultants who are at present examining the possible access routes—that is, both the new motorway and the rail link?

Secondly, can he give an assurance that he will bear in mind the argument which I have repeatedly advanced, and on which, I may say in passing, I am supported by that formidable expert Professor Buchanan, that the access routes must pass north of any proposed urbanisation in order to avoid slicing in two the population of the new airport city?

Thirdly, can my hon. Friend say whether there is any truth in the reports which have appeared in our local newspapers that the motorway will not be ready before 1979—that is, only one year before the first runway at Maplin will be operational? If so, will he undertake to have a fresh look at the timetable? Fourthly, and connected with this, is my hon. Friend aware that the existing Al27 road from London to Southend will be quite inadequate in a relatively short space of time to carry the normal expected growth of traffic, let alone any construction traffic which will have to move down it to Maplin if the motorway is not completed before 1979? Will he bear in mind, therefore that his protestations about safeguarding our local environment will not be taken seriously unless the motorway to take the expected increase in traffic is completed much earlier than 1979?

Finally, will my hon. Friend undertake to look at the ill-considered proposal that a flyover rather than an underpass be constructed on the Al27 at Rayleigh Weir since, as matters stand, the peace of mind and amenities of scores of my constituents are going to be badly affected? This scheme is part of the planned improvements for the Al27, but I see absolutely no reason why there should not be an underpass. A flyover will cause a great deal of distress to many of my constituents. Will he take note, therefore, that I fully support the attitude of the local authorities on this.

Again I would ask my hon. Friend —I am not asking him to make any pronouncement now—to take a fresh look at the whole proposal.

4.13 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)

Not for the first time my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) has spoken up in defence of his constituents' interests and with a very proper and vigorous desire to know all that can be known so that he can form, as he put it himself, a rational rather than an emotional judgment on this very large matter. I am glad, too, that my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir Bernard Braine), again not for the first time, has raised a number of questions which concern his part of Essex.

I start by saying that the Government attach importance to making available to the public as much information as it is possible to give on this whole matter so that there shall not be misconceptions and so that the public and my hon. Friend's constituents shall know that we intend that environmental considerations shall be uppermost in the design, planning and execution of this airport. Accordingly I give my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich a straightforward assurance that it is the Government's judgment that the airport will not cause significant noise disturbance to the people who live in north-cast Essex.

My hon. Friend asked whether the airport is necessary. I think that it is. This was shown by the unanimous recommendation of the Roskill Commission which the Government accepted. We are convinced that it is needed by 1980 as a beginning to relieve the growing congestion at the other airports and to take up the increasing volume of traffic.

If either short or vertical take-off aircraft were to come to fruition—there is a considerable Government-backed effort to investigate these possibilities—it might affect the need for a third or fourth runway, as we have always said, but there can be no doubt that getting on with the airport at the start is essential in the national interest.

To my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich I say that those who, for their own reasons, political or otherwise, have suggested in his constituency that these flights can be handled by a series of literally hundreds of little airports at all the towns in the country simply do not know of what they talk. It is irresponsible for them to suggest that.

Mr. John Wilkinson (Bradford, West)

These fears are not merely local to Harwich and Essex. For example,

people in the industrial Midlands and the North are saying, with justification, that the terms of reference of the Roskill Commission were wrong, and that nobody fully examined the potential of an intercontinental airport in a catchment area further north. They are anxious that the whole planning balance of the nation has been dragged to the South-East to the detriment of the country as a whole.

Mr. Griffiths

My hon. Friend will have read Roskill. I can only suggest that he offers the full text of the Roskill report and the evidence given to the Roskill Commission to those of his constituents who feel that way.

I will now deal in more detail with the current anxieties in North-East Essex about noise and flight paths. I fully understand that people should have these anxieties, and it is right that they should seek assurances through my hon. Friends.

First, the noise pattern. We published the best possible estimates of that noise pattern in our consultation document of last April. It shows the predictions for 1990. We chose 1990—ten years after the airport will be open for business—on the ground that this will show the worst situation before the impact of quieter aircraft more than offsets the predicted increase in traffic. In other words, the calculations have been made on a deliberately pessimistic basis, and that must be right.

The document shows that the noise shadow—that is to say, the area enclosed by the 35 NNI contours—lies mostly over the sea, and that is exactly why we chose to go to Maplin in the first place. None of the shadow extends to North-East Essex, and very little of it extends over land anywhere else.

Now the flight paths. I know from my hon. Friend that there are anxieties about flight paths, particularly in the neighbourhood of Clacton and Mersea Island among elderly and retired people who have gone to live there in the full expectation that they would not be bothered by aircraft noise. Over 75 per cent. of all the flights to and from Maplin will not cross East Essex at all. Only one out of four flights, or fewer, of those coming into and going from Maplin will have to cross East Essex, and most of those will be fairly high up.

A lot of comment has been made about aircraft flying very low over Mersea. The situation is that for about 80 per cent. of the time the airport will be working in a south-westerly direction facing the prevailing wind, and when the airport is working in that fashion only the landings will have any impact on North Essex. My hon. Friend, who is wise in these matters, will know that power is cut back on landing and there is, by definition, less noise than on take-off. So for 80 per cent. of the time the only question that arises in North Essex is the landings. The landings will come from aircraft arriving over British air space in two streams. More than half will come from over the North Sea, from Europe and the South, and those will have no impact at all on North-East Essex.

It is only the other half of the landings which could have any impact on North-East Essex—that is to say, those coming from the North-West over land. I can assure my hon. Friend that these are expected to fly at a height of about 7,000 feet over the district west of Mersea, that they will drop to 5,000 to 6,000 feet over the east coast of Mersea Island and, therefore, continue entirely over the sea and then turn to land at the airport. Moreover, they will have their power cut off for landing, which means that there will be less disturbance.

Let us take the other case. For 20 per cent. of the time the airport is working in the other direction, the prevailing wind being from the south-west. During that period, normally one day in five, most aircraft leaving Maplin will take off in a north-easterly direction and will use full power. That is where the noise most commonly arises. But most of those aircraft will be turning right over the North Sea and will not have any impact on the Essex area. It is only those aircraft which turn left and go north-west across Essex with which my hon. Friend's constituents need to be concerned, but I am advised that when crossing the coast they are expected to be at an average height of 5,000 feet. Many would be higher, and it is only the Boeing 747 which, in unfavourable circumstances, might be as low as 4,000 ft.; that would represent the bottom stream. This arises for less than a quarter of the total traffic and for only one-fifth of the time; namely, when the airport is working in a north-easterly direction.

Perhaps I can deal with some of the specific points raised by my hon. Friends. My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East mentioned the consultant study on access routes. I cannot say when that report will be available, but I hope that it will be very soon. I will ensure that the results of the study are made known.

I take my hon. Friend's point about the need to avoid splitting communities, and no doubt we shall come back to that matter again. I can tell him that the motorway will be ready in good time. I do not think he will expect me to say more about specific dates, but I recognise the point made by both hon. Friends about improving communications. Perhaps I should inform the House that the London terminal will not be Liverpool Street but Kings Cross. We are considering all the planning considerations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich asked whether it would be possible to lay on a demonstration flight or flights to simulate the aircraft pattern over Maplin. I have carefully considered this matter and have asked whether it would be possible to simulate a realistic experiment to show people what the sound would be like. After considering the matter carefully, one is driven to the conclusion that it is impossible in the 1970s to project a realistic pattern for the 1990s.

Moreover, with the mix at different heights and levels in aircraft operations it would be almost impossible to simulate systems to serve Heathrow, Gatwick and military airfields in East Anglia. It would certainly not be possible to simulate realistically what the situation may be in 1990. We have had to make the best assessment, and in some ways the most pessimistic assessment, and this is represented in the consultation document.

My hon. Friend asked about Concorde and supersonic aircraft in general. The mix of aircraft types shown in the consultation document and in the noise estimates at that time included Concorde, which, with other supersonic aircraft, was expected to form about 10 per cent. of Maplin's movements in the year 1990.

I give the assurance that a great deal of Concorde traffic will be well out over the sea. My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East has asked me to look at the flyover proposals at Rayleigh. He will appreciate that that is a small point of detail with which I cannot deal now but I will write to him about it. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich raised the question of the container port which is to be associated with the Maplin complex. The Port of London Authority has submitted proposals in broad terms for an oil terminal and a unit-load terminal. It says that these facilities will be needed to meet the anticipated growth of container and roll-on, roll-off traffic for both deep sea and European trade.

The Government have told the Authority that we agree in principle to both those proposals. It must now come forward in detail, under Section 9 of the Harbours Act, and before my right hon. Friend can possibly agree to its going ahead we shall have to be satisfied that there is a proper need and that the investment is viable. Those details we have not yet received, but I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that Harwich or Felixstowe or any of the ports with which he and I concern ourselves may make proposals for their own development if only they can meet the same criteria; namely, that the port is necessary in the national interest. We will happily look at such proposals. My own judgment is that with the rapid increase in trade to the Common Market there will be plenty of business for Felixstowe, Harwich and any Maplin port.

My hon. Friend also asked about pollution. I have come across some suggestions from his area, from those who have their own motives—scaremongering—that all the beaches in the area will be covered with oil. There is no reason to expect that the PLA in managing a port at Maplin would allow that to happen. Moreover, as he knows, the Government have taken strong measures about oil in navigable waters both in relation to fines and preparations to prevent the pollution. This will apply with Maplin, and I can give some of the assurances my hon. Friend has sought.

As for the wild life, the Government attach a great deal of importance to preserving and re-locating, where appropriate, the Brent geese, the Waders and the sea birds. There is a considerable programme of studies going on. We are taking into account the whole question of bird strike.

I return to the question of noise nuisance which is at the heart of my hon. Friends' concern. I would ask people in North Essex to consider this picture objectively. It is not the case that all of Maplin's traffic will go near to them. At worst it will be rather less than one-quarter of the traffic and at best it will be for one-fifth of the time. Four times out of five the flights that go anywhere near North Essex will be landings, and in these circumstances the airport will be 18 statute route miles away from the coast of Mersea and the aircraft will be at height. This is why we do not get the noise shadow over land in North-East Essex. It is over the sea, nearer the airport, where the arrival streams from Essex and the North Sea join together that the aircraft are lower down. I can say that none of the route possibilities we are considering extends further north than Mersea Island and there will be no effect on Clacton or Colchester.

By the 1980s aircraft will be very much quieter, inherently, than they are today. Already the DC10 and Tristar are flying with recorded noise levels substantially lower than the new imposed standards, and I look forward to a continuing improvement. No final decisions can possibly be taken about flight paths yet but when they are I can assure my hon. Friends that they will be taken with environmental considerations uppermost in our minds.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.