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News: Flightpath price warning

Thu, 31 May 07

The introduction of a new website which tracks flightpaths over London is a welcome and useful tool for homebuyers...

“While the prices for properties under flight-paths in London and other major cities are not seriously marked-down, houses in the country that are in the ‘noise range’ of flight-paths can be significantly cheaper.

“House prices in places like Barnes or Richmond upon Thames, which are affected by aircraft noise as they fall directly inline with Heathrow tend to be relatively unaffected, however, it is a very different story if your are looking to buy in the country.

“I have known houses that lie within the range of Gatwick airport to be 30% cheaper than those where aircraft have climbed to 7,000ft-10,000ft or more and are not a constant nuisance.

“The launch of this new website offers a useful guide for buyers. We would always advise our clients if a house or village is beneath a busy flightpath with planes heading for large regional airports such as Manchester, Birmingham or East Midlands but no agent is ever going to voluntarily reveal that a property is below a flight-path.

“It is important that prospective buyers have as much information available to them as possible, allowing them to make a fully informed choice about any potential purchase – while those directly under a flightpath may have to endure a level of noise pollution, it is quite likely that they will get more house for their money, so the choice is theirs.”

A public inquiry into plans to expand Stansted airport starts today. BAA who has launched the noise map (www.baa.com/noise) wants to increase the numbers of passengers using the airport from 25 million to 35 million with a consequential increase in flights from 80,000 a year to 264,000.  

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