Issue - meetings

Councillor A Brown, Ward Councillor for Gotham and the Borough Council representative on the East Midlands Airport Independent Consultative Committee (ICC) addressed the Group to explain the role and remit of the ICC.

Councillor Brown informed the Group the ICC is a formal body who liaise between the East Midlands Airport and neighbouring communities, including local authorities, airport user groups and local interest groups and stakeholders. The ICC meet three times a year to enable frequent dialogue and engagement between the ICC and the airport. The Group were advised that there are also two sub-committees known as Monitoring, Environment, Noise and Track (MENT) and Transport, Economic Development and Passenger Service (TEP), each of which meet three times a year also.

The Group noted that Councillor Brown had been a member of the ICC for eight years as the Nottinghamshire County Council representative and more recently the Borough Council representative.

Mr Reed-Aspley, Head of Corporate Affairs at East Midlands Airport delivered a presentation to inform the Group of the Airports Corporate Social Responsibility and Community Fund providing valuable contributions to the local economy.

The Group were provided with an airport update since the spiked increase in air freight during the pandemic. The Group were informed that passenger numbers in summer 2023 had returned to 95% of pre-pandemic levels, but the airport had seen a drop in air freight volumes due to changes in the economy and the war in Ukraine. However, Mr Reed- Aspley was confident that demand would begin to increase again.

Mr Reed-Aspley informed the Group that the airport was investing in passenger facilities with improvements to passenger and colleague security systems in line with new UK security regulations to be introduced in 2024 and improvements to the retail units, bars and restaurants and external improvements to the drop off area, short stay car parking and the surrounding roads to make it easier to navigate and safer for pedestrians.

Mr Robinson, Airspace Change Manager at East Midlands Airport provided a summary of the airports Corporate Responsibility including the airports approach to:

Zero Carbon Airports - supporting decarbonisation of the entire aviation industry – targeting net zero carbon no later than 2038.

Opportunity for All – supporting career and employment opportunities, including training and skills opportunities – airport academy creating jobs within the airport community.

Local Voices – East Midlands Airport Community Fund - Providing funding and support to community groups and community projects.

Mr Robinson highlighted the airports draft Noise Action Plan which sets out the actions committed to by the airport to mitigate the impact of aircraft noise between 2024-2028 and reviewed every 5 years thereafter.

The Group were informed of the airports noise and track monitoring system which enables the monitoring and compliance of noise from aircraft which checks and records the path of every aircraft arriving or taking off from the airport. These monitoring systems helps the airport to understand trends, compares performance and provides robust data for noise modelling. It was noted that aircraft operations  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14