Heathrow: A date has been set for the Government's appeal against a landmark court ruling to ban night flights from Heathrow airport.

The European Court of Human Rights will hear the appeal against its original judgement, which favoured residents living underneath the flight path, on October 9.

Eight residents from Kingston, Richmond and Wandsworth won a landmark victory last October when the court ruled that they were entitled to a night's sleep undisturbed by aircraft noise.

They argued that the 16 scheduled night flights between 11.30pm and 6am seriously infringed their human rights.

After hearing the evidence the court found that the Government had not taken reasonable steps to balance the financial gain to the airlines from night flights with the obvious disturbance it caused to residents.

John Stewart, chairman of the anti aircraft noise group HACAN ClearSkies, said: "The Government came in for a lot of criticism when it decided to appeal, but the decision of the Appeal Court if it loses again, is final, in which case it will have nowhere to run.

"It will cost us £150,000 to fund our court appearance and we have no doubt the money will be raised."

Richmond, Wandsworth, Hounslow and Runnymede councils have all pledged funds to the campaigners to defend the appeal.

July 8, 2002 10:00