Wokingham residents are likely to experience more night time aircraft noise until summer 2025 while Heathrow airport undergoes planned runway resurfacing work.
On September 3, the airport began what it described as ‘mixed mode’ operations from 2230 until 0600 from Sunday evenings until Friday mornings. This means all arriving and departing aircraft will use the same runway, unlike the usual pattern of operation
The airport said that for the initial phase of the work, all planes will use the northern runway on these five nights every week. The usual alternation between runways will continue on Friday and Saturday nights.
It said that “since Heathrow has relatively few night flights, this won’t impact many aircraft”.
Campaign group Stop Heathrow Expansion disagreed. It said in the last week of August, there were 76 “extremely late” departures after 2330, with some after 0100.
A spokesperson said: “The last scheduled departure at Heathrow is at 2250. Only about half of these were as a result of the disruption caused by the air traffic chaos on August 28 and 29, with many extremely late departures happening before this incident occurred.
“As aircraft begin to arrive from the United States and the Far East from as early as 0430, this means that even with normal flight patterns there are unacceptably limited quiet periods for too many people in the Thames Valley.
Justine Bayley, Chair of Stop Heathrow Expansion, said: “We accept that the runways need resurfacing works every decade or so, but it is frustrating that this work has to take so long. It will cause unacceptable levels of noise at night time without the respite runway alternation normally provides – so many Thames Valley residents who live underneath its flight paths will potentially have their sleep disturbed for months on end.”
A statement from Heathrow airport noted that approximately every 10 years, full-length resurfacing works take place on each of its two runways. The last time this was carried out was in 2013.
It said: “Because Heathrow is so busy, this work needs to take place at night. That will mean changes to our runway alternation pattern, particularly for night-time flights.
“Most aircraft flying after 10.30pm and before 6am will use a single runway while the resurfacing works take place overnight on the other runway.
”Disruption to night-time alternation for this period of time is not ideal, but it is unavoidable.
“Some of our neighbours are likely to experience more noise than usual, or at different times than they might expect.
“The impact on communities is something we very much considered in our planning, but we recognise this may still be disruptive to our local residents.
Rob Barnstone of Stop Heathrow Expansion, added: “All areas under Heathrow flight paths, including Wokingham, will be subject to more noise when the works are impacting them.
“So whichever runway is being worked on, the other one will take all the flights (and noise!) between 2230 and 0600.”
Jeremy Abell, who lives on London Road, told Wokingham Today: “Until a few months ago, we used to get three or four periods a day of intense air traffic approaching from the east to the south, and turning over Wokingham to make their final landing approach to Heathrow from the West.
“More recently, apart from a couple of periods, these overflights stopped resulting in a greatly improved environment.“
While overall passenger numbers remain below pre-pandemic levels, 7.6 million people travelled through Heathrow during July, averaging nearly a quarter of a million passengers a day.
