High emotions tonight at the fourth annual residents’ meeting of PUSH Uithoorn. Local residents southeast of Schiphol feel that they are not being listened to and made this clear in unmistakable language. Noise pollution from aircraft has been running rampant for years.
PUSH (Platform Uithoorn Schiphol Nuisance Reduction) organized the meeting together with other interest groups of residents southeast of Schiphol. They believe that the airport has been exceeding its limits for years in terms of aircraft nuisance.
Last September was a new low. Because the Kaagbaan runway was under maintenance, measurements showed that no fewer than five hundred planes a day about Uithoorn. The municipality of Uithoorn also objected to this.
Protests
Chairman Mirella Visser called it unbearable before the meeting: “When so many planes fly over at such a low altitude, you can’t even sit outside anymore. It drives people completely crazy. All those different residents’ organizations have now registered a protest, but We have to keep up the pressure.”
More than a hundred local residents were in the sports canteen of the Legmeervogels tonight. First to listen to speeches by Visser and Harald Buijtendijk, expert in the field of aviation policy in the Netherlands.
During the break, residents had the opportunity to talk to people from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Air Traffic Control the Netherlands and from Schiphol itself. Frustration was clearly visible there too.
At times emotions ran high. “Schiphol’s credibility has fallen to freezing point,” one of the residents shouts right through Visser’s opening speech. Another wonders aloud whether ‘Schiphol is at all concerned’ about the negative consequences for those living near the airport.
There is particular surprise at the uncertainty that still exists regarding the announced shrinkage of Schiphol. The government has plans to shrink the airport to a maximum of 452,500 flights per year, but the nature permit issued to Schiphol at the end of September allows a maximum of 500,000 flights. What number will it be now?local residents wonder.
Minister absent
There was also misunderstanding about the lack of dignitaries. Both the director of Schiphol, Ruud Sondag, and the director of Air Traffic Control declined the invitation. The responsible minister Harbers, who had promised to come last year, also did not show up.
Only one Member of the House of Representatives accepted the invitation that Visser had sent to the entire House, Eva Akerboom of the Party for the Animals. The responsible councilor of the municipality of Uithoorn, Ferry Hoekstra, was also present. They both support the residents’ call to further shrink Schiphol.
The southeast corner of Schiphol, including the municipalities of Uithoorn, Aalsmeer and Amstelveen, was recently in the news. Residents had to be compensated because it was proven between 2017 and 2019 that aircraft noise pollution. However, according to the local residents themselves, this happened in an apparently random manner and with large differences in the amounts of money paid out.