Thousands living near Schiphol will be eligible for noise disturbance compensation

Several thousand people living near Schiphol Airport can apply to receive compensation for the nuisance they experienced when an inspectorate failed to intervene after air traffic caused too much noise at their home, said the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management on Thursday. It concerns residents of the municipalities of Uithoorn, Haarlemmermeer, Aalsmeer and Amstelveen who lived from November 2017 to October 2019 in the vicinity of an enforcement point where the noise standard was exceeded.

They will receive a letter next week, and will then have from May 1 to July 31 to submit an application.

For years, the inspectorate for human environment and transportation, ILT, never stepped in when the noise standards around the airport exceeded standards. They looked the other way largely in anticipation of new rules that were expected to come into force. The regulator previously warned that this "anticipatory enforcement" could sometimes be legally vulnerable and has since stopped doing so.

Then, nine local residents submitted a request for compensation in 2020 due to their reduced quality of life as a result of this tolerance policy. An independent committee tasked to evaluate this at the request of the ministry sided with the residents over the issue.

An investigation was then launched to determine how many other households dealt with similar circumstances. It turned out to be about 4,600 street addresses in total.

The amount of the compensation has already been calculated for all those addresses, based on the degree the noise standard was exceeded, and the official valuation of their homes. For the majority of victims, the amounts range from 50 to 2,200 euros.