Rachel Cerfontyne, Chair of the Heathrow Community Engagement Board to depart as organisation adapts to new realities
“The last 18 months have seen unprecedented disruption to our everyday lives with a significant and lasting impact on the aviation sector. Nowhere has that been felt more keenly than at Heathrow Airport.
Over the last 12 months both the Heathrow Community Engagement Board (HCEB) and Heathrow Airport (Heathrow) have had to adapt their teams to reflect the new realities. This included a significant organisational restructure at the airport, which has meant that the resources now available at the airport for community engagement are more limited. To prioritise Heathrow’s areas of focus going forward, a thorough review was undertaken by the airport to simplify and streamline its engagement through its community forums and meetings. This included a 4-week consultation with local stakeholders and communities in January/February 2021 to seek their feedback on the airport’s engagement through these channels.
A joint HCEB and Heathrow working group was also set up earlier this year and has agreed on broad principles, a potential new structure for the HCEB, with a particular focus on ‘mediation and scrutiny’, alongside ensuring the statutory requirements of the airport to consult and engage locally are met. The proposals will be integrated to work effectively with Heathrow’s other revised engagement forums.
A period of engagement with stakeholders will now take place to receive feedback on the proposals before a further announcement will be made on the future organisation before the end of the year.
The HCEB Chair, Rachel Cerfontyne, who was initially recruited for a 2-year term, has been integral in developing these changes and, after 3.5 years of stewardship will depart the organisation in late 2021. Commentating on her departure Rachel said: “It’s been a fascinating, challenging and rewarding experience, and I believe we have achieved a great deal. We have successfully engaged many people in communities close to Heathrow who have previously had little or no say in the airport’s operations and changed perceptions within some communities about how they might seek to influence planning decisions. This feels like an appropriate moment for me to move on to my next challenge but I do so having made many new friends”.
Heathrow’s CEO, John Holland-Kaye paid tribute to Rachel’s time as Chair; “Rachel brought integrity, independence and professionalism to what was a new role engaging with the communities closest to the airport. The changes Heathrow and HCEB are embarking on now, to ensure our stakeholder scrutiny and community engagement reflects the new realities we find ourselves in, would not have been possible without Rachel’s insight and trusted leadership over the past three and a half years. The pandemic has reinforced the importance of working closely with our neighbours and we remain fully committed to engaging with our local communities and working collaboratively on the issues that matter most to them.
The Heathrow Airport and HCEB joint working group added; “Rachel delivered a fresh and independent perspective and was able to broker deep and new conversations across all interest groups throughout her term of office. We will shortly embark on a period of stakeholder engagement on our proposals and in due course begin the search for a new Chair but meanwhile, we are lucky to have Rachel’s continued involvement and look forward to paying tribute to her at the next HCEB Forum meeting in October.”