Changes to London City Airport’s flight paths will create a “noise ghetto” in east London, Green Party campaigners have said.

Activists from the Waltham Forest and Redbridge Green Party gathered outside Leytonstone tube station on Saturday asking people to sign a petition against the concentration of flights from City Airport over Leyton, Leytonstone and Wanstead due to start on February 4.

In November last year the Civil Aviation Authority gave the go-ahead for London City Airport to the use new technology to create a much narrower and concentrated flight corridor over Wanstead, Leytonstone and Leyton.

It would see a plane flying over these areas every three minutes.

London Assembly Green Party candidate, RoseMary Warrington said: “The noise of these flights will bring misery to the lives of thousands of East End residents.

“They will result in a noise ghetto in our communities and decrease the quality of life of the residents.

A spokesman for the Green Party said it was very happy with the 50 signatures collected.

Green Party London mayoral candidate Sian Berry is campaigning to close the airport altogether and use the land to build thousands of new houses.

She said: “With just 1.5 per cent of air passengers across the UK, the airport is a blight on London whose flights could be easily absorbed by other London airports.”

A spokesman for London City Airport denied it was changing its flight paths.

He said: "The Airspace Change Proposal put forward by NATS, the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services in conjunction with the airport, allows for the introduction of area navigation, superseding ground based navigational systems.

"Existing flight paths will be replicated so that they do not change from those flown today, while the highly accurate RNAV method of aircraft navigation will allow planes to follow the centreline more closely."