Thousands live on 'blight paths'

Heathrow's "blight paths" - the routes in and out of the airport that cause daily noise misery to thousands - are revealed today.

Now campaigners are warning that estate agents may be misleading people about the extent of the problem.

The sheer scale of noise pollution from Heathrow airport are illustrated in authoritative and up-to-date maps charting take-off and landing routes. They show how increasingly wider parts of London, home to more than a million people, are now effectively under Heathrow flight paths.

However a survey by anti-noise campaign group HACAN found 60 per cent of estate agents in areas affected by aircraft noise around Heathrow are prepared to be economical with the truth on the issue.

For hundreds of thousands of people living 10 miles or more east of Heathrow, the noise is a recent problem that in many cases did not exist when they bought their homes.

The Civil Aviation Authority maps, reproduced on Wandsworth council's website, confirm complaints from parts of south-east London not normally associated with aircraft noise. Residents report air traffic depriving them of sleep and making their homes hard to sell.

Locations such as Greenwich, Lewisham, Oval, Brixton, Stockwell and parts of Berkshire are now affected. They join Battersea, Wandsworth, Clapham, Putney, Barnes, Kew and Richmond where aircraft noise has always existed, although it continues to get worse.

In the HACAN survey, the campaign group called estate agents in Clapham, Battersea, Brixton, Sunbury and Staines. Several flatly denied that certain addresses were directly under the flight path, when they were.

Others referred to "a little aircraft noise" or said "it's not that noisy" or "when you step inside the house you won't hear it".

Agents in areas well known for aircraft noise were more honest. Here, a growing number of people now go away regularly at the weekend just to get some proper sleep.

Flight numbers in the UK have grown at between four and six per cent a year over the past decade. As a result, although planes have become quieter, the benefit is more than offset.

"Wandsworth suffers because it lies due east of the southern runway at Heathrow. From the borough boundary at Roehampton the airport is just nine miles away," a council spokesman said. "Most aircraft still land into the prevailing westerly wind - they make their descent over Clapham, Battersea, Wandsworth and Putney."

Wandsworth council was behind the recent European Court of Human Rights case that found night flights breached the rights of residents entitled to a quiet night's sleep. Transport Secretary Stephen Byers is appealing against the ruling, and the case will be heard in Strasbourg in the autumn.

Meanwhile BAA, which runs Heathrow, is building a fifth terminal and wants additional runways and the lifting of all restrictions on flight numbers.

BAA has a 24-hour hotline to report noisy aircraft at Heathrow. Ring 0800 344844.