In Flanders and Brussels, they had until January 8 to respond. According to our information, between 4,000 and 5,000 complaints have been lodged in relation to Brussels Airport's license renewal application.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
There's a new development in the overflight dossier, which has remained unresolved for decades. Over the past few years, local residents' organizations have joined forces to avoid parochial quarrels and speak with one voice, putting an end to \"not in my backyard\" reactions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Today, the associations of the areas overflown are clear and have a common agenda of demands. Firstly, they don't want to hear about the airport's desire for growth in the number of movements<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \"A 40% reduction in aircraft noise in pascals does not mean a reduction of 40 decibels. If you're woken up by an aircraft at 70 dB rather than 80 dB, the result is the same: you're still awake,\" says Bertrand Waucquez, mayor of Kraainem and vice-president of the Union Belge Contre les Nuisances A\u00e9riennes (UBCNA), since 2016.<\/p>\n He reminds us that insulating houses can't solve everything. We're thinking in particular of summer, a season when we tend to open our windows in the heat or enjoy the outdoors. \"We're often told 'you knew this when you moved here', but we didn't know at the time, when we moved in, that there was fine and ultrafine dust<\/strong>. We've only been talking about it for about ten years,\" adds Waucquez.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Finally, in his opinion, operational measures<\/strong> on approach, landing and take-off would only have a marginal impact on noise.<\/p>\n Local residents' associations, like a number of local authorities, believe that the only way to really limit nuisance is to limit operations to 220,000 movements per year (almost 20,000 less than Brussels Airport is asking for), establish a low-emission zone and simply ban night flights<\/strong>. Obviously out of the question for the airport, logistics companies and even trade unionists, who have thrown up their hands in protest at such a proposal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\n<\/strong>MAYOR OF KRAAINEM AND VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BELGIAN UNION AGAINST AIR POLLUTION (UBCNA)<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\nLimit nuisance by restricting movements<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n