Andrew Gilligan: Hellish Copters

AS it finally starts to look like spring, our thoughts in SE10 turn to sunshine, weekends in the garden or the park, open windows… and helicopters.

Anyone who spends the summer in Greenwich will know that in recent years, these things have become a scourge. With the better weather, it’s started happening already: whenever we have a combination of sunshine and a weekend, we also have helicopters. In July and August, there will be maybe a couple of dozen to ruin the average Sunday afternoon, making it unpleasant to open our windows or sit outside.

Greenwich residents’ anger was clear in their responses to a London Assembly enquiry into helicopter noise three years ago. Caroline Welch said: “Just a few years ago helicopter overflights were rare. Nowadays at weekends when I am in my garden, one after the other passes over. Many of the helicopters circle around and around, and it is not at all uncommon to see three or four in the air at once.”

“Living in the same house in Greenwich since 1980, my neighbours and I have experienced an exponential increase in exposure to the growth in environmental noise,” said Kenneth May.

Derk Fordham, of the Greenwich Society, called them an “appalling nuisance” which “create very disturbing noise levels.”

Jeff Daley, who lives on the Isle of Dogs opposite Greenwich, said: “I seem to be on the flight path of all helicopter traffic in summer. When sitting in the garden it becomes unbearable. What used to be a nice day sitting reading and chatting to friends is now gone, thanks to the constant drone of the helicopters all day.”

So why us? Alas, Greenwich has two features which place it, more than almost any other part of London, in the target zone. As this map from the Civil Aviation Authority shows, we are at the far eastern end of the so-called Helicopter Route H4, which runs along the Thames from Barnes to a point north of Greenwich Pier.

H4 is the only route that single-engined helicopters are allowed to take through central London and to Battersea heliport. And Greenwich is the “compulsory reporting point” for the route, on which all choppers coming from the east, north-east or south-east must converge. Sometimes, when H4 is busy, or a fixed-wing flight is going into City Airport, the helicopters have to circle in the air over Greenwich before they can proceed.

But that is only a partial reason why we seem so particularly plagued with helicopters flying around and around over our heads. Nor does it explain why there seems to be such a heavy concentration of flights on weekends and sunny days.

For the major part of the explanation, we must look at one of the most pernicious London growth industries since the lap-dancing club: the helicopter sightseeing tour merchants.

Their rise and rise can be traced to a rule change in 2005, when the CAA decided to allow helicopters over London to fly lower. They used to be forced to keep above 1500 feet. Now they can come down to a thousand. You can see a lot more sights from a thousand feet. The change was manna from heaven for the helicopter tour folks, mayhem from heaven for the rest of us.

As I mentioned, central London – apart from the river – is off-limits to single-engine choppers. The exclusion zone, called R160, covers an area roughly equivalent to the Travelcard zones 1 and 2 – and Greenwich is just on the eastern edge of that, too.

So if you want to run a nice quick helicopter tour to somewhere that looks pretty and “iconic” – but don’t want to have to make costly detours around the twisting course of the Thames, then back again the same way, where do you go? Why, right here. The park, the observatory, Canary Wharf, the Dome: all the things which make Greenwich interesting to visit on the ground make it just as attractive from the air.

The difference, of course, is that by visiting from the air, five people in a chopper spoil it for all the other tens of thousands of visitors, not to mention shattering the peace and calm for 50,000 or so residents, over an area of about five square miles.

I’ve considered this quite hard, and I simply cannot think of a more contemptible and selfish way to sightsee. The C02 emissions, too, must be nothing short of horrific.

To those of you who say that helicopters are necessary for the police, the ambulance service, the military and even to get our beloved captains of industry around, I would agree, sometimes. (I wouldn’t agree always – the burden of being kept awake by the police helicopter for hours probably outweighs the benefit of catching whoever it is they are after.)

But statistics published by the CAA show that helicopter movements in London rise dramatically in the summer. That confirms that much of the traffic is not for any socially or economically useful purpose, but purely for pleasure trips and corporate jollies. You will notice the sharp rises in helicopter movements on the days of Wimbledon and Royal Ascot, for instance.

What can we do about it? For a start, there’s no-one to complain to, as you’ll find out if you try. The CAA only holds itself responsible for safety. The various official noise monitoring bodies seem only to concern themselves with fixed-wing flights. The local councils have opted out.

There are a few grounds for hope. The National Air Traffic Service (NATS) is thinking about extending route H4 further to the east – and moving the reporting point away from Greenwich. That could just dump the problem on the people of Woolwich or Bexley, however. NATS has, I might add, been considering this change since 2005, without any sign of action so far. And it won’t help with the sightseeing tours.

We may also hope that, with the recession, selfish behaviour in helicopters goes the way of all those other boom-economy manifestations of casual indulgence. But even if it does, it will probably return in the next upswing of the economic cycle.

The only permanent answer must be strict limitations on sightseeing flights – or perhaps even an outright ban. I can’t really agree that looking down on the Dome from a thousand feet constitutes a vital human right.

In the meantime, you might try a little telephone terrorism. Next time somebody in a chopper ruins your Sunday, get on to the nearest helicopter sightseeing tour operator and make some loud noise of your own.