Campaigners have attacked the revised Gatwick Airport Noise Action Plan as “flawed” and the result of a consultation which was “largely a sham.”

Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC) says the current situation on the draft Gatwick Noise Action Plan (NAP) is “extremely unsatisfactory.”

The Charlwood-based group says that facts it has unearthed as a result of a Freedom of Information request reveal that, among other things, the revised draft plan submitted to the Department for Transport (DfT) by the airport last December, after consultation with the public, only included a few changes from the original draft, and so the consultation was “largely a sham.”

GACC added the results of the consultation, summarised by a firm of consultants employed by the airport and presented to the DfT, “are totally mangled and unrecognisable.”

And the group said the consultation process had not been “open and transparent.”

GACC, a voluntary association founded in 1968, has as its goals a steady reduction in noise and pollution from the airport, and other key aims including the protection of the environment around Gatwick, and keeping the airport within its present boundaries.

It is the main environmental body concerned with Gatwick and has as members about 100 borough, district and parish councils, covering about a 20-mile radius from the airport.

The NAP was created to comply with an EU environmental noise directive and was released in draft form for the first time last summer.

It set out more than 50 actions to minimise noise near Gatwick and underneath flight paths, including giving priority to quieter planes, engaging more with affected communities, and possibly creating steeper approach paths that would reduce noise as planes land.

In its report on the revised draft NAP produced by Gatwick Airport and submitted to the Government last December, GACC called for more effective action and less secrecy.

The group said the revised draft was only obtained after considerable delay by means of a Freedom of Information request.

GACC said its preliminary report revealed a lack of Government action, little response to the consultation exercise and an inadequate summary of consultation responses.

John Byng, one of the GACC vice chairmen, said “The recent ash events have reminded us of the peace and quiet we miss, and of the importance of doing everything possible to reduce noise.”

He said: “The latest draft Gatwick Noise Action Plan falls well short and we shall press the Government to take further action so that we can look forward to less noise, not more. “There is considerable scope for quieter aircraft and better management to reduce the suffering of local residents.”

Regarding openness and transparency, GACC stated in its report: “ Both Gatwick Airport and the DfT refused to publish the revised action plan, and it was therefore necessary to lodge a Freedom of Information request. “Unlike the normal governmental consultation procedure, the responses have not been made available for public inspection, so there is no way of checking whether the (mangled) summary is correct. “The Department is refusing to accept any further representations, and is treating the issue as a private matter to be dealt with between themselves and the airport.”

GACC added: “People whose lives are made a misery by noise are to have no say in the result.”

The group highlighted “two welcome additions in the revised version” of the NAP - both of which it proposed - on implementing recommendations on a steeper approach path to Gatwick after feasibility studies were carried out, and adopting, where applicable and appropriate, the findings of research on the effects of noise on health outlined by the World Health Organisation.

But elsewhere, GACC said wording had been changed to neuter GACC proposals.

GACC said the Freedom of Information reply showed that the revised NAP fails to address the issue of concentration of arrival flight paths, that “a number of constructive proposals” from GACC for alleviating the problem had been ignored, and that there had been a failure to recognise “the intense misery, distress and injustice caused to those under the flight paths.”

“The fundamental flaw in the whole noise action plan is that there is no commitment to reduce the total noise caused by the airport,” the group concluded.

A spokesman for Gatwick Airport was not available for comment.