• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 18 June 2014

Murad Qureshi AM: Can I follow up on John’s point on surface transport? Yes, Heathrow is the second biggest hotspot for air pollution in London after central London. It is interesting the City Airport came up because it has a 60% level of passengers using public transport for getting there. I cannot see if City Airport can do that why Heathrow cannot aim at that as well.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 June 2014

John Biggs AM: I am reminded in the context of Kit Malthouse’s last question that people often wonder why people live on the foothills of active volcanoes and it is because the soil is fantastically fertile. It does not necessarily answer the question as to why we should have people living next to airports but it is a relevant issue. My question is about the modal split and it follows from the first part of Caroline Pidgeon’s question about HS2. Do you take a position on the sort of modal split Heathrow Airport should have? Clearly one of the terms...

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 18 June 2014

Kit Malthouse AM: I wanted to ask, in terms of the studies you do, whether you are looking at safety. Within living memory we have the Staines air disaster from Heathrow. It was only in 2009 I think that plane made it in over the fence, you remember, and crash-landed just on the apron. We have been lucky so far. The 118 people who died on the plane at Staines were not lucky but obviously you understand what I mean. I wondered whether you were looking at the possible impact or greater possibility of an impact of some sort of...

• Question by: Onkar Sahota
• Meeting date: 18 June 2014

Dr Onkar Sahota AM: Sir Howard, you said you will not resurrect the idea of a link between Heathrow and Gatwick but you are still keeping the critically ill patient, the estuary airport, alive. Is it not time to switch off the ventilator on that idea or do you think it is something which you think is still a plausible idea? Listening to you this morning, I can see all the arguments why the estuary airport is not a goer anyway.

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 18 June 2014

Kit Malthouse AM: I just wanted to ask about this suggestion of shifting the number of night flights and opening this window from 5.40am to 6.00am. Presumably you are anticipating that the first touchdown would be at 5.40am, which means that the approach would be in the 15 to 20 minutes before that. Of course, that is when much of the noise pollution is occurring. For instance, I live in Islington and we get planes over us at the moment at about 5.40am or 5.45am because they are wheels-down at 6.00am. Have you taken into account that actually what you...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 18 June 2014

Tony Arbour AM: Arising from the last point that Mr Tracey raised, you told us that on the basis of what you already knew it is likely to be true that a third runway is going to generate less noise than two runways. I may say that my constituents in Hounslow and Richmond have frequently heard assertions saying, “More means less”, which has not proved to be so. I wonder if you can tell us on what you base your certainty that there will be a smaller noise footprint from a third runway than there is from the existing two...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 18 June 2014

Richard Tracey AM: Can I question you a bit further on Heathrow? I do not know where you live, Sir Howard. I live in Wandsworth and a lot of my residents, of course, suffer from these early-morning flights you have been talking about. Indeed, Mr Graham was at the meeting a while ago and heard that people from Lambeth were complaining in exactly the same way as we are in Wandsworth. Do I take it that you accept that the current levels of noise, particularly early-morning noise, going into Heathrow are unacceptable for the millions of people who live underneath...

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 18 June 2014

Murad Qureshi AM: Sir Howard, sticking with the here and now with the compensation and mitigation of airport noise, I just want to be reassured. In coming to a decision regarding aviation expansion, what weight will you give to the present offer that Heathrow Holdings has made regarding the £500 million for noise insulation and property compensation?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 June 2014

John Biggs AM: I should start by saying that although the Assembly is unanimous in taking the view that Heathrow presents all sorts of problems, we are not necessarily unanimous on the conclusions that flow from that. I am very interested in this issue of noise. There is a health warning here, which is that scientists can measure it but the individual experience of it seems to vary from person to person and from time of day to time of day as well, so we need to be very clear about that and how people find it offensive. In your...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 19 March 2014

You will recall in relation to this, Mr Mayor, that at the last meeting I raised the subject of sound cannon and I drew your attention to the fact that sound cannon had been deployed during the Olympics. You, unusually, expressed the opinion that this was something you knew nothing of. I wonder whether or not you would, whilst you are looking at the SmartWater option or indeed any other option for crowd control, look to see what the effect is of sound cannon, particularly in relation to the point I made as to how cheap the implementation or the...