Report from Councillor Graham Whitehead
Hi All,
I am Graham Whitehead, a Councillor on Rochford Parish Council (RPC).
I am 1 of the 2 RPC representatives (Cllr James Cottis is the other) on the London Southend Airport Community Noise Forum (CNF).
The CNF is an Independent Community Noise Forum, hosted by London Southend Airport (LSA).
Sorry about all the long titles & initials, but I do take my membership of the forum seriously. You can find a link to the CNG on the airport’s web page, but they have not updated it since 2021 or earlier.
We meet (or try to meet) 4 times a year, but due to the airport losing several key staff members & the independent chairman, we only managed to meet once in the past 12 months.
Our meeting was on Wednesday 26th January 2026, where we were introduced to the new chair, Vicki Hughes, who was appointed by the airport.
I think that is enough background from me, so I shall let you know what was discussed at the meeting, from RPC parishioners’ perspective.
So back to our meeting of 26th Jan 2026;
The meetings tend to have a lower attendance than the membership numbers, hence the CNF is actively seeking suitable new members who can represent significant local bodies. One of the primary concerns, which was raised by a specific member is the use of small planes, on their practise runs, they will circle the airport in a standard hold pattern. For those practising TOs or Ls, the holding pattern is like an oblong with rounded corners. They have set the height to adhere to, but these heights are quoted against sea level, so when the ground is higher than the runway, they are flying closer to the land and can seem quite low.
The gentleman has problems because the planes seem to turn right over his land. His horses are not pleased, especially when the planes have to increase their power and hence the noise. This does not really come under RPC business, but the flight paths are fixed and cannot easily be varied, this does effect some of our parishioners, as they live under 2 of the other corners.
The wording of the 106 agreement (this is an agreement the airport signed as part of the planning consent) was explained to me in better detail than I managed to get from the copy I found by a web search.
I had assumed that it stated that the airport was NOT allowed to have any scheduled flights to TO or L after 23.00 & before 06.30. The actual rules are no TOs until 06.30.
Landings are a little more complex, hence my error. They can schedule planes to take off between 23.30 and any of these between 23.00 and 23.30 will count towards the night flight allowance. This is a max figure to post 23.00 flights per month; it is a very large number equating to some 3 or 4 per night. It was drastically reduced to this figure from a ludicrously higher figure prior to the 106 agreement. They can also have “late” flights when they are delayed for many reasons, some of which, in my opinion, are just to save EasyJet and the airport money. When this starts happening, in the summer, which they will, if they affect you, please let me know and I will do what I can to get that practice changed or better controlled.
Another item of interest is that EasyJet cannot get as many new A320neo planes, as they would like. These are the planes they currently run from Southend. The reasons are, because of the problems Boing have/had with the 737MAX, a lot of the airlines ordered Airbus A320neos. This, along with supply issue or the P&W engines, used on the A320neos, means longer delivery times. Hence EasyJet will not be able to run as many flights as it would want.
That is really all of interest to us in Rochford.
If there is anything you would like me to bring up at the next or subsequent meetings, please email me at :- graham.whitehead@rochfordparishcouncil.gov.uk
Thank you
Cllr Graham Whitehead
