Residents Celebrate Belfast Airport Court Ruling

A previous decision to allow a virtual free-for-all on passenger numbers at George Best Belfast City Airport has been quashed at the High Court.

The court has ordered that the cap that previously limited individual 'seats' to two million in any year is to be reinstated after successful legal challenges against the move that was originally announced by the former Environment Minister Edwin Poots.

The High Court orders confirmed the outcome after the Department of Environment conceded both cases ahead of a scheduled full hearing.

The rival Belfast International Airport (BIA) brought judicial review proceedings against removing the controversial restriction claiming that the decision announced last December was unlawful and failed to take into consideration environmental implications.

Belfast City Airport Watch (BCAW) also took proceedings, as well as BIA - separately rather than jointly - with the result that court orders issued by Mr Justice Treacy, quashing the decision, mean that the Department will have to reinstate the seats for sale limit.

A spokesperson for the airport said today: "We will continue to work closely with the Department to agree a noise contour and to engage in a process to modify our existing planning agreement.

"Belfast City Airport is one of the most tightly constrained airports in the UK and an important contributor to the local economy.

"It is important that this issue is resolved in a timely manner," he added, noting that no further comments would be made and no one was being made available for interview by the media.

Reacting to today's news, the Chair of the residents' group BCAW, Dr Liz Fawcett said: "This is a fantastic day for the tens of thousands of residents who are affected by noise pollution caused by planes which operate from the airport.

"We are delighted that our case has been vindicated and that the Department will now have to reinstate the seats for sale restriction.

"The restriction is an important one for residents because it limits the number of larger, noisier planes which the airport can operate.

"We are now calling on the current Environment Minister, Alex Attwood, to confirm that his Department will be enforcing this clause," she said, adding that the scale of the noise problem for residents has dramatically worsened within the last three years, and claiming that the airport's own figures show that many more people close to Belfast City Airport are affected by a significant level of noise than is the case at major airports such as Stansted or Gatwick.

(BMcC/GK)