Communities are being locked out in the biggest changes to airspace design in over 60 years, warns AEF.

Bats. Newts. Spiders. Snails.Campaigners. Now communities.

Over the past year, the Government has been busy naming so-called “blockers” to its aspirations to “build, build, build”. It has been explicit in its hostility towards them and to legal challenges to its decisions. Yet it has ignored the advice of experts and has failed to back up its claims that any of those identified as blockers really are holding up economic growth.

Against this backdrop, the Government is seeking to increase airport capacity across the country and especially in the South East. To help with this, the Government needs to modernise the current network of flight paths, in its Airspace Modernisation Strategy. The strategy will see more aircraft flown along narrow corridors creating “motorways in the sky”. 

Previous governments promised[1] that community views about the noise impacts of airspace change would be embedded in airspace modernisation decisions. But a raft of new consultations published before Christmas indicated that, together with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the current government is attempting to exclude communities from having a say on crucial decisions about how they’ll be overflown. 

Whereas previously there had been a clear indication that there would be a seat for communities on the body designing airspace, the UK Airspace Design Service (UK ADS), it now appears that only airlines and airports will be represented. Proposals to revise the 2017 Air Navigation Guidance (ANG) are light on detail about how communities will be involved, and long-standing principles such as prioritising noise mitigation between 4,000ft and 7,000ft are under threat. 

As the UK’s leading NGO representing communities affected by noise and air pollution from airports, we are dismayed that the government is walking back on previous assurances, and diminishing the public’s right to contribute to airspace proposals that directly affect them.

In our response to the Department for Transport’s consultation on proposed revision to the ANG we said that:

• We strongly disagree that “noise from aircraft flying at or above 4,000 feet is not a relevant consideration.” 
• We object to proposals to remove a commitment to strengthen community engagement
• We disagree that “emissions from aircraft above 1,000ft are unlikely to have a significant impact on local air quality”
• We object to the way in the new ANG seeks to place responsibility for increased capacity and associated increases in CO2 emissions elsewhere in the planning system.

You can read our full response here.

[1] One example of this can be seen here, in a response from the CAA/DfT in June 2025: “We would expect the Advisory Board to include representation on behalf of communities,” (page 10). Source:https://www.caa.co.uk/media/3lhfj1c2/policy-paper-ukads-25-1.pdf

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