Schiphol and interest group Barin, which represents 38 airlines at Schiphol, no longer want to pay for the costs of insulating homes around the airport. The interest group says it has already invested enough in facade insulation in the past and believes that the government should tap into other sources of financing, such as the proceeds from the airline ticket tax. Schiphol believes that the procedures to determine who is entitled to free insulation have been followed carelessly.
The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management is currently preparing a new scheme to insulate more houses around Schiphol and thus protect against aircraft noise. Before the actual isolation, the ministry has given local residents and stakeholders the opportunity to express their opinion on the plans.
It didn’t get very stormy, but the municipality of Uithoorn and residents’ organization PUSH Uithoorn, among others, refer the scheme to the rubbish bin, because they are not eligible for insulation. In Uithoorn, the noise nuisance from Schiphol are not serious enough.
Schiphol and interest group Barin have also responded. Both emphasize that efforts are needed to reduce the nuisance caused by Schiphol, but send the ministry back to the drawing board. Barin chairman Marnix Fruitema believes that the aviation sector has made a sufficient contribution to insulating thousands of homes in the past.
Already contributed 750 million euros to insulation
“In the period from the mid-1980s to 2012, the sector made a large-scale contribution to the insulation of more than 13,000 objects and made an estimated financial contribution of 750 million euros,” Fruitema writes to the ministry.
Schiphol points out that it has not yet been carefully determined to which houses the scheme applies. Like the municipality of Uithoorn and residents’ group PUSH, the airport points out that there are homes in areas that do not qualify, but that are built under approach routes and that there is too much noise in those houses.
Both Schiphol and Barin are surprised about the right to free insulation for homeowners with homes built after 2012. They think they should already be equipped with facade insulation during construction. Schiphol finds it strange that the airlines have to pay for those costs.
Flight tax
Schiphol and Barin propose to draw the money from another source of financing. They argue for a new environmental fund to be set up and to pay for the insulation with the proceeds of the flight tax, which has been significantly increased since January 1.
“This is in line with the principle ‘the perpetrator pays’ and the commitment from the coalition agreement that the proceeds will ‘partly be used to make aviation more sustainable and to reduce the impact on the environment’,” said Schiphol.