Living with aircraft noise: Airport proximity, aviation noise and subjective wellbeing in England Ricky N. Lawton a,b,⇑ , Daniel Fujiwara c,b a Environment Department, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom b Simetrica, United Kingdom c London School of Economics and Political Science, Centre for Economic Performance, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom article info Article history: Available online 8 December 2015 Keywords: Aircraft noise Subjective wellbeing Aviation impacts Quality of life Transport policy Impact assessment abstract Airport expansion is an issue of intense public debate due to the potential impacts on cli- mate change and the quality of life of affected local communities. This paper is the first study to analyse the relationships between airports and multiple subjective wellbeing measures, by merging national-level population statistics with noise measurement maps for seventeen English airports. The presence of daytime aviation noise was found to consis- tently negatively impact on five subjective wellbeing measures. We found a marginal neg- ative association with every additional decibel of aircraft noise. We found no significant association between wellbeing and living within night-time noise contours or living in close airport proximity. We conclude that living under air traffic flight paths has a negative effect on peoples’ overall and momentary wellbeing, equivalent to around half the effect of being a smoker for some wellbeing measures. The subjective wellbeing method findings support wider revealed preference literature showing lower market demand in areas affected by aviation noise. Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Airport expansion is an issue of intense public debate for environmental groups and local residents in affected areas around airports (Howarth and Griggs, 2013). Increases in airport capacity are challenged due their anticipated impacts on global climate change (Chapman, 2007), and the quality of life of affected local communities (Yim et al., 2013). However, with air traffic in Europe expected to increase between 1.4 and 2.2 times by 2030 (EuroControl, 2013) demand for expansion of air capacity continues to grow in policy contexts. Increased demand for air travel and the importance of trade links with international and emerging markets has generated policy demand for additional airport capacity in the United Kingdom (UK) (Airports Commission, 2013). Consequently, three airport expansion options at London Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted in the South East of England are currently being assessed for economic, environmental, health, and wellbeing impacts. Noise is a leading environmental complaint in the European Union (European Union Directive 2002/49/EC). Transporta- tion noise, such as that arising from road, rail, and air traffic, can cause adverse effects on health, quality of life and wellbeing (World Health Organisation, 2011), with links between exposure to aviation noise and poor general health status (Franssen et al., 2004), stress, anxiety, and hypertension (Black et al., 2007; Rosenlund et al., 2001), and dose response relationships with residents’ annoyance levels (Federal Interagency Committee on Noise, 1992; Hede and Bullen, 1982). Large-scale http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2015.11.002 1361-9209/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author at: Crowne House, 72 Hammersmith Road, London, W14 8TH, United Kingdom. E-mail addresses: ricky_lawton@hotmail.com (R.N. Lawton), D.F.Fujiwara@lse.ac.uk (D. Fujiwara). Transportation Research Part D 42 (2016) 104–118 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Transportation Research Part D journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/trd