Clapham: Helicopter short cuts should get the chop, say south London locals

Furious locals in South London have complained about helicopters flying too close to homes, causing items to fall off their walls.

Since January 2020, Wandsworth Council has received 25 complaints from residents who claim the helicopters are noisy, fly too close to homes, fly over homes to take short cuts and cause air pollution.

Wandsworth heliport bosses explained there was very little that could be done to prevent items falling off walls if the repetitive motions of a helicopter increase, as they did during the Silverstone Rally earlier this year.

In Wandsworth Council's London Heliport Consultative group meeting on Monday (December 6), Putney resident James Eaton expressed his concerns over helicopters taking alleged short cuts past his home.

He said: "I'd like to know how I can influence those aircraft making sure they don't fly over my house, which is not actually on the route.

"They're coming from places like West Sussex or Surrey from the south of England, and they're swinging by to come to join onto the Thames and go along the Thames and follow that route.

"So it's ones that take a short cut over Putney to get to the river quicker."

James added that there were other issues where a sightseeing helicopter circled around "maybe eight times" over his home and another helicopter just hovered on another occasion.

Will Curtis, heliport manager said: "Our air traffic control report deals with aircrafts taking off and landing at the heliport, all other routing once they've left the heliport is the under the purview of [airports].

"Of course, aircraft and pilots should stick to any rules if they've been cleared to follow those heli routes.

"If on the other hand, Heathrow's cleared them a direct routing, which they might well have done, they may not stick to the heli routes and Heathrow may have reasons why they want that to happen."

Heathrow has been contacted for comment.

Will added: "We'll try and put up some information notices and maybe get ops to just highlight the issue to crews.

"We can also talk to our regular operators and just say that this is a sensitive area, can you please do your best. I can't promise that everybody will do what they're supposed to do."

Mr Harper also raised concerns of noisy helicopters keeping their engine on for longer than needed before taking off on two occasions.

Mr Curtis said he said this was not a problem he recognised and that helicopters can operate up to 11pm.

A spokesperson from the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) said: "Helicopter pilots are expected to follow the published routes, however there will always be a degree of variation in route-keeping because pilots are flying from point to point except when following a line feature such as the River Thames or a road.

"It is extremely unlikely that NATS controllers will offer pilots a shortcut in the area under scrutiny.

"There are other variables that can cause the area to be overflown. If the helicopter is operating to or from a landing site that requires it to leave the heli-lane.

"There are also priority and non-standard flights that will operate off-route including police, helimed, and survey aircraft."