An Bord Pleanála and the “Relevant Action”

TL;DR

30,000 people are suffering under the noise pollution of aircraft that should not be overflying us according to Condition 1 of the only planning permission that permits the north runway to operate. Those aircraft should be over the empty fields and solar farms that have been reserved for the flight paths since 2007. There is no safety, regulatory or technical reason that prevents daa from complying with the original noise footprint from the 2005 Environmental Impact Statement that underlies the planning permission for the north runway.

daa is trying to pull a fast one by submitting before and after noise charts that are virtually identical, calling the before chart “permitted”, pretending that they are not ignoring their 2007 planning permission conditions. They hope ABP won’t notice this and will grant de facto retention to the current illegal flight paths just like Fingal County Council did.

ABP should not allow daa and AirNav to persist in causing damage to citizens when a solution is possible. The appeal should be upheld and Fingal County Council’s cynical grant of permission should be reversed.

It’s November 2023 and the DAA is at it again.

Their Relevant Action application was granted by Fingal County Council in August 2022 before the runway even opened, and there are some questions about how that happened. Multiple people lodged appeals with An Bord Pleanála (ABP). As a result daa had to make a submission with a new Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIAR). After 6 months of full-time paid work by consultants and staff the EIAR was submitted and then published by ABP, all 500 pages of it. Anyone wanting to make an “observation” has 5 weeks to do so. Keep in mind that most of us working on such observations work full time jobs, so no imbalance in the process there at all.

The following are some elements “observed” in daa’s latest EIAR.

Accidental Retention

The relevant action under consideration by An Bord Pleanala (ABP) is ostensibly limited to changing the regulation of night flights at Dublin Airport. However, the daa (Applicant) has shown bad faith in ignoring the conditions of the original grant of permission. They have simply flouted several of the conditions, in particular totally disregarding the noise provisions of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

The constant refrain from daa has been that the route of the flight paths has been required by the IAA on safety and/or regulatory grounds. I am a private pilot and a civil engineer. Based on extensive research as part of the “North Runway Technical Group”, I have concluded that operation of the runways at maximum capacity within the confines of the safety regulations is perfectly possible while remaining within the footprint of the originally granted EIS noise zones. While AirNav makes vague statements about complexity, safety and regulation that body has never stated that this conclusion is incorrect.

To be clear; there is no safety, regulatory or technical reason that prevents daa from complying with the original noise footprint from the 2005 EIS.

Before seeking to change any aspect of their existing planning permission, the daa must surely bring itself into compliance with the existing granted permission. Failing that, the Applicant must accept that they are not in compliance with Condition 1 and file an honest application for retention of the non-compliant flight paths that are presently in use. Instead daa persists in pretending that the flight paths are entirely unconnected to the planning permission and is now on the fourth set of routes since 2005, while nowhere near compliant with the original Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

2005 Environmental Impact Statement

The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) submitted by daa in 2004, updated in 2005 formed a primary underpinning for ABP to grant the permission for the runway. This was of such importance that ABP called it out in the first sentence of Condition 1.

Daa has outsourced aviation operations to AirNav (formerly IAA ANSP), but AirNav insists that they need not comply with the EIS / planning permission, describing planning as daa’s problem.
Daa has then simply forwarded the AirNav-designed procedures to IAA (the regulator) without having even the in-house capability to review them and verify compliance with planning permission. Daa’s CFO told the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications that the routing of flights “took them by surprise” when the runway started operations in August 2022. This despite daa as the “aerodrome operator” made the submission to the IAA.
IAA insists that they have no remit regarding planning permission or suitability of the procedures’ routing. As long as it does not break aviation law or ICAO standards, they will rubber stamp any submission.

The result is that 100% of aircraft leaving the north runway leave the confines of the original EIS noise boundaries within 30 seconds of take-off. They are therefore at low altitude and climb power causing noise at much higher levels than permitted in the areas overflown. Each of the three state bodies involved blames the others and 30,000 people suffer.

We depended on the accuracy of that EIS in making the decision to redevelop our house rather than move. Had we known that the EIS could be simply ignored and 300+ aircraft each day were to be diverted over our house in contravention of the planning permission we would have moved rather than invest further in Ashbourne.

2023 Environmental Impact Assessment Report

The following list shows the flaws in the Applicants EIAR submission that should render the application invalid and cause the appeal to be upheld.

Noise zones labelled as “permitted” in this submission do not match the 2005 Environmental Impact Statement which underlies the only granted permission for the north runway (ABP 2007). This appear to be an attempt to gain retention by stealth for the flight paths currently in use in breach of the 2007 planning permission. Should ABP grant this relevant action it will no doubt be interpreted by daa as a grant of retention for the new noise footprints that encompass an area inhabited by 30,000 people.
Upwards of 85% of the environmental impact of the changed flight paths occurs in Meath. Ashbourne, Ratoath and multiple smaller conurbations total to approximately 30,000 people in Meath directly affected by aircraft overflight. None of these people were involved in the public consultation that was strictly limited to Fingal; a clear breach of the Aarhus Convention.
We made a decision to invest in redeveloping our home subsequent to this consultation with no knowledge that it had occurred. The daa’s published documents show that 100% of consultation and publicity around that consultation occurred within Fingal. No information was published in Meath despite that being the location of the noise impact. In effect Fingal Co Co asked residents of Fingal whether they objected to airport noise being exported to Meath. Unsurprisingly not many objections were received and this formed the basis of their decision to grant permission for the relevant action.
The public consultation in 2016 used different routes and noise zones from the routes in this submission, rendering that consultation invalid. Had we been involved in the 2016 consultation we would no doubt have objected. However, it has become apparent that this would not have mattered as daa (via AirNav) has twice since then changed the flight path routes so they bear no resemblance to those in the public consultation. In any case daa presents this relevant action as pertaining to the time and number of night flights, not an application for retention of non-compliant flight paths. ABP must clearly understand that granting this relevant action will have consequences far beyond the number and times of night flights.
The State bodies (Fingal Co Co, Meath Co Co, daa) have taken the position that only Fingal Co Co has standing regarding the planning permission. The daa insists that the planning permission has nothing to do with the routes. Therefore citizens in Meath have no means to engage in the planning process and are completely unrepresented while being subjected to the environmental impact. This call for submissions by ABP is the first opportunity anyone in Meath has had to participate in any way in the planning permission process for the north runway, more than a year after the runway opened and illegal flights began.
Acceptance of the relevant action by ABP and thus retention of the present, unpermitted flight paths by stealth would set a precedent that ABP conditions should be ignored if inconvenient. Far from accepting the relevant action Fingal Co Co should be taking action to enforce the existing noise zone. However, Fingal has a conflict of interests and has taken no enforcement action regarding the flight paths / noise zones.
If the environmental impact that happens in Meath were restricted, it would slightly increase environmental impact in Fingal, albeit largely over empty fields and solar farms and certainly not over any densely populated area. ABP should not endorse Fingal Co Co’s granting of the relevant action to move the noise and disturbance to people outside Fingal’s jurisdiction who are not represented by Fingal Co Co and are not participants in the process.
There are alternative routes that conform to the existing noise zone without reducing the capacity of the airport. AirNav’s failure to design the procedures well and daa’s flagrant ignoring of planning permission should not be rewarded. This is not an issue of safety or regulatory compliance as implied by daa. AirNav (daa’s proxy) and IAA, the regulator, have both publicly stated that compliance with planning permission is not their concern and they ignored it in performing their function. The breach can be repaired within the confines of the original Environmental Impact Statement upon which the 2007 ABP grant was based as per the first sentence of condition 1.

The many and varied North Runway Flight Paths

Google Earth was used to display the various flight paths that AirNav and daa have used for planning, consultation and finally implementation.

The green line was the flight path used to create the original Environmental Impact Statement for the original planning application for the north runway project. The black outline is the resulting “outer noise boundary” from that EIS.

The red lines are the routes used in the 2016 public consultation using a 15 degree turn and subsequent 60 degree turn that would place the majority of the environmental impact in Meath. This public consultation took place only in Fingal.

When the runway opened daa was “taken very much by surprise” that aircraft followed the orange route over Fingal. They moved very quickly to have AirNav modify the route ensuring the impact is in Meath.

The magenta lines show the presently operational routes. Note the orange line was moved just over the border to a newly created waypoint DW128 in Meath. This is the only error daa admits to in the entire process and Kenny Jacobs apologized on PrimeTime for this while insisting that the magenta lines are now the “intended route”.

So, the only line that put air traffic over Fingal was a mistake and they’re very sorry, while the illegal flight paths over Meath are intentional. Was this the deal for Fingal County Council to grant the relevant action and remove the night flight limits?

In this image daa’s Forecast Lday Noise Contours 2035 Permitted Scenario Figure 13C-23 are overlaid with the current north runway traffic. The magenta tracks (from the previous image) currently in use form the 4^th flight-path design so far by daa/AirNav and only went into operation in February of 2023.

Examination of the original EIS demonstrates that the grey Noise Contours in this image is traced from the next one (in which the outer boundary is yellow). They nowhere near the noise contours claimed as permitted in the current EIAR. Simple logic dictates that it is impossible that these noise contours are the “Permitted Scenario”

This one daa calls “permitted”. As is obvious it bears no resemblance to the actually permitted noise zone. If ABP were to grant this relevant action they would be accidentally granting retention of the non-compliant routes that daa has been using since the runway opened.

This one is the “proposed” scenario. As should be obvious daa are claiming that the relevant action will have little to no effect and should be granted. Of course you would have to choose to believe their existing routes are permitted to fall for that.

In summary 30,000 people are suffering under the noise pollution of aircraft that should not be overflying us according to Condition 1 of the only planning permission that permits the north runway to operate. Those aircraft should be over the empty fields and solar farms that have been reserved for the flight paths since 2007. There is no safety, regulatory or technical reason that prevents daa from complying with the original noise footprint from the 2005 EIS. ABP should not allow daa and AirNav to persist in causing damage to citizens when a solution is possible. The appeal should be upheld and Fingal County Council’s cynical grant of permission should be reversed.