Make flying quieter, says Tewkesbury MP
The Conservative member for Tewkesbury, who has Gloucestershire Airport at Staverton in his constituency, raised a question in the House of Commons about what requirements there were for light aircraft landing at airports near housing developments to have silencers fitted.
Minister for Transport Paul Clark told Mr Robertson: "The Department for Transport has had no recent discussions with the Civil Aviation Authority about the fitting of silencers to light aircraft. The effective management of aircraft noise includes a number of elements, including action to address noise at source. While it is possible to fit silencers to some light aircraft, this can have an effect on engine power and consequently engine performance."
Mr Robertson said later his question had been motivated by contact from constituents about noise at Gloucestershire Airport.
He said: "I'm not against aviation, I think it's good for business and I think the opportunity for the less well-off to go to Europe or the USA, which is a recent thing, should continue.
"But I have had complaints from people who live nearby and it's clear that the noise can blight peoples lives, so we need to try to make flying as quiet as possible
"I'm trying to push the Government a bit to see if they can make silencers a requirement."
And bosses at Gloucestershire Airport say they would be delighted if it became law to make silencers on light aircraft mandatory. It currently offers a 20 per cent reduction in landing fees to planes with silencers to encourage their use.
Managing director Mark Ryan said: "We'd love it if all aircraft were made to have silencers.
In fact we see the ridiculous situation where some of our tenants buy an aircraft from European countries like Germany where they are required and they take them off to use them here.
It then costs a lot of money and paperwork then to get a silencer fitted back on.
"We are very aware of our resp- onsibility to our neighbours, and would ask everyone to lobby their MP and MEP to put this silly situation right."
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said: "Silencers are not mandatory and we have no plans to make them so.
"The UK adheres to certain standards on noise and we don't mind much how that is achieved, whether by silencers of engine design."
He added that people importing 'planes from Europe were not required to remove the silencers, and said: "Anyone who imports an aircraft must get it inspected and validated by the CAA, you can't just bring an aircraft in and start flying it around.
"Any silencer must also be validated and some owners my choose to take them off before an inspection."
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