What are LBA’s CLEUD applications all about?
Introduction
This document is designed to clarify the issues surrounding LBA’s five applications for Certificate of Lawful Existing Use or Development (CLEUD) that were submitted on 6th September 2023. It is based on the information which has thus far been made publicly available. GALBA asked on 14th and 18th September for the full application documents to be made public, in line with the Council’s statement of community involvement.
In summary, it appears that these applications may concretise small changes that will make it easier for LBA to achieve the passenger throughput and noisier aircraft they want without going through a public planning process.
The applications are dealt with in the following order. Detailed descriptions of each of these issues is given later in this document:
1) this would allow noisier planes (QC1) to take off at night. Without more detail it is difficult to quantify the impact.
2) and 3) work together to remove QC0.25 (latest generation planes) from the quota system, potentially allowing unlimited night flights with immunity from enforcement.
4) clears up the ambiguity of which document defines ‘exempt’ planes.
5) allows delayed flights up to 1am to be excluded from the quota.
Some of these might sound relatively trivial individually, but together they add up to a new night time noise regime that would be far more negatively impactful than was sought in the 2020 application to expand. It appears it would cement the noisiest use of LBA ever and one of the most relaxed regulations in the country at a commercial airport, as it appears to allow an unlimited number of certain types of night time flights.
A quick lesson in QC Levels
Noise from commercial aircraft is measured in decibels (dB) and the DfT has divided the noise into categories called QC bands. Each band is 3dB wide and is the smallest increment detectable by the human ear. Each plane is allocated an appropriate QC band.
Important Highlights
Clarification?
LBA says it is seeking clarification. But what it is actually applying for is several Certificates of Lawful Existing Use or Development (CLEUD).
This is the same as saying: we have been breaking the rules and have no intention of stopping, now we want immunity so we can continue to break the rules for ever.
To qualify for a CLEUD, LBA needs to demonstrate that:
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it has continuously engaged in the activity for 10 years.
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there has been no enforcement notice issued against the same activity (Town and Country Planning Act 1990, Section 191).
Public Inquiry
As part of LBA’s 2020 planning application to expand operations, a public inquiry was scheduled to take place in September 2022 that would have included examination of many of the same issues on which LBA is now applying for a CLEUD. The public inquiry would have allowed LBA to make representations, get clarification, and modernise the operating conditions at the airport in accordance with suggestions by LCC in the Planning Officer’s Report at the time.
LBA decided to withdraw its application shortly before the public inquiry.
LBA is now, via the CLEUD route, attempting to lay the basis for expansion, when the original planning inquiry process was a more appropriate and open forum for the material changes in question to be addressed. Instead, LBA has chosen a process that does not allow for comments by the public or elected councillors and limits the matters that the planning decision-maker can take into account.
CLEUDs in detail
1. 23/05440/CLE
Certificate of Existing Lawful Development to confirm immunity against enforcement of the departure of aircraft with a quota count of 1 pursuant to Condition 4 of permission 07/02208/FU
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Condition 4 - No departures in the night-time period shall take place by aircraft with quota counts of 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 on take-off.
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This would allow QC1 take offs at night. It is currently restricted to QC0.5 only (see 6b below). This would appear to result in a noise regime that would be more negatively impactful than in 1994 when the night time flying hours were first relaxed. In the years prior to 1994 there was a total ban on night flights from 10pm to 7am.
It may be that this CLEUD is specifically aimed at early morning take offs of some older B737s at maximum take-off weight and particular engine configurations. It could affect many pre-7am take offs, or very few, we simply don’t know until the Council publishes the application documents.
2. 23/05441/CLE
Certificate of Existing Lawful Development to confirm that Condition 6(a) and 6(b) of permission
07/02208/FU do not cover aircraft with a quota count of less than 0.5
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Condition 6 - During the night-time period, (2300-0700), no aircraft movements shall take place other than by:
a. Landings by aircraft classified as falling within Quota Count 0.5 and 1 for arrivals as defined in UK NOTAM S45/1993 issued by the Civil Aviation Authority and any succeeding regulations or amendments/ additions/deletions.
b. Departures by aircraft classified as falling within Quota Count 0.5 for departures as defined in UK NOTAM S45/1993 issued by the Civil Aviation Authority and any succeeding regulations or amendments/ additions/deletions.
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Condition 7 - Subject to 7 (c) to (f) and 8 below, the maximum number of aircraft movements in the night-time period by aircraft specified in condition 6 (a) to (d) shall be limited to and not exceed:-
a. 1,400 in Summer seasons. b. 600 In Winter seasons.
c. Subject to the approval of the Local Planning Authority in writing, 900 for each Winter season with effect from and including 1996/7.
d. Subject to the approval of the Local Planning Authority in writing, 2,100 for each Summer season with effect from and including 1997.
e. Subject to the approval of the Local Planning Authority in writing, 1,200 for each Winter season with effect from and including 2001/2.
f. Subject to the approval of the Local Planning Authority in writing, 2,800 for each Summer season with effect from and including 2002.
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This apparently excludes planes with a QC of less than QC0.5 from conditions 6a and 6b so that QC0.125 and QC0.25 would not count towards any quota and could, in theory, fly in unlimited quantity. This makes a significant difference to noise levels and would result in a less strict noise regime than the withdrawn 2020 application to expand.
Because the application wording says “Condition 6(a) and 6(b) of permission 07/02208/FU do not cover aircraft with a quota count of less than 0.5”, this seems to mean that condition 7 (the quota) also does not apply to aircraft with a QC of less than 0.5, because condition 7 acts on 6a and 6b. This appears deliberate because in 3), below, LBA asks for immunity from enforcement if they allow QC0.25 planes to fly.
In the 2020 application to expand, this condition would have been replaced to clarify exactly what is allowed using the latest definitions from the regulated airports and that all flights count towards the quota. In 2022 LCC planning officers took the pragmatic approach and suggested that such flights should be allowed but must count towards the quota because conditions 6 and 7 (quota) work together.
QC0.25 and QC0.125 planes are in operation today in small amounts but increasing each year.
3. 23/05442/CLE
Certificate of Existing Lawful Development to confirm immunity against enforcement of any prohibition of movements of aircraft with a quota count of 0.25 during the night-time period
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This ties in with 2) above and appears to ask that LBA can allow QC0.25 planes to fly in unlimited numbers with impunity.
4. 23/05443/CLE
Certificate of Existing Lawful Development to confirm that 'exempt' is defined in Condition 6(e) of permission 07/02208/FU, by reference to the provisions of UK NOTAM S45/1993 (without updates)
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Condition 6e - Exempt aircraft defined by UK NOTAM S45/1993.
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This appears to be aimed at clarifying the anomaly that conditions 6a and 6b refer to UK NOTAM S45/1993 plus updates, but 6e omits ‘plus updates’. So, this clarifies that ‘exempt’ is defined in the original 1993 document.
The 1993 definition is more relaxed than the later NOTAM notices which define ‘exempt’ as only light propeller driven planes being utilised to undertake essential airport safety checks. This CLEUD appears to allow smaller, mainly private, jets to go uncounted, which we understand is not the case at the regulated airports.
5. 23/05444/CLE
Certificate of Existing Lawful Development to confirm that condition 9 of permission 07/02208/FU allows delayed and emergency flights to land during the night time period regardless of their quota count, and such flights do not count against the cap on night time movements in condition 7.
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Condition 9 - Movements in the night-time period by aircraft defined by conditions 4 and 5 will only be permissible in the following circumstances:
a. Delayed landings up to 0100 hours by aircraft scheduled to land at Leeds-Bradford Airport (LBA) between 0700 hours and 2300 hours.
b. An emergency, i.e. a flight where there is an immediate danger to life or health, whether human or animal. Aircraft movements in these categories are exempt from night-time restrictions and will not count against the night-time period limits specified in condition 7.
Condition 4 - No departures in the night-time period shall take place by aircraft with quota counts of 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 on take-off.
Condition 5 - No landings in the night-time period shall take place by aircraft with quota counts of 2, 4, 8 and 16 on landing.
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Note: The history of this is that there used to be noisy old jumbo jets (QC2 and above) operating during the day which have been phased out now. This condition made an allowance for such a flight, if delayed, to land so the passengers were not inconvenienced for no fault of their own.
This appears to permit another significant impact because it would allow LBA to delay landings to between 11pm and 1am for any type of plane and for such delays not to be counted towards the quota. Currently only QC2 arrivals are affected by this condition (for historical reasons) and those are no longer in operation at LBA. So this CLEUD attempts to revise a condition that was intended to only affect noisy QC2 flights to all flights.
It would appear that grant of this CLEUD would allow flights knocked-on by those moved out of the 6-7am slot (due to the enforcement notice) to the 7-8am slot to arrive late so that operators could achieve the same number of rotations over the course of a day. It would seem to mean more flights after 11pm.
LBA recently applied for level-3 flight coordination by ACL. This only covers the 11pm-8am hours. So, as far as we can tell, airlines could, in theory, delay pre-11pm flights until after 11pm and there would be no penalty for missing their allocated pre-11pm slot.
As with the other applications, this would appear to worsen the noise regime with respect to the 1994 conditions.