§ Mr. FoulkesTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the number of complaints about low-flying aircraft for each training area for each month since January 1980 and give for each month the relative number of sorties involved.
§ Mr. NeubertMonthly breakdowns of low-level military training sorties and complaints and inquiries received at the Ministry of Defence about such training are as follows. It should be noted that some of the monthly figures for earlier years were corrected on aggregation and yearly totals calculated by aggregating the monthly figures given may differ slightly from the yearly totals supplied previously to the House.
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1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 August 7,976 10,005 10,366 10,482 10,532 11,634 10,229 11,959 13,182 September 10,714 11,551 10,950 9,768 9,973 11,338 12,847 12,954 11,459 October 11,156 12,476 10,339 11,585 12,421 12,849 12,950 11,950 11,589 November 9,365 11,431 11,053 10,201 9,929 12,993 12,968 12,892 — December 8,756 6,790 7,477 8,614 7,761 7,064 9,068 8,814 —
Monthly Complaints in the United Kingdom Low Flying System 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 January 222 159 142 246 206 145 238 224 283 February 194 228 257 212 145 190 210 227 311 March 170 209 323 288 150 170 164 236 324 April 276 283 367 405 288 224 308 305 449 May 242 329 235 619 370 406 401 405 668 June 383 540 232 589 885 301 569 515 634 July 372 721 405 727 1,009 487 636 777 643 August 389 483 290 814 925 573 1,062 691 917 September 459 724 418 516 480 591 701 723 497 October 328 329 192 211 401 382 454 691 349 November 160 298 276 294 324 390 294 714 — December 170 199 168 146 186 274 267 187 — It is not our practice to publish detailed information relating to specific low-flying training areas.