Representation by Gareth Green
- Date submitted
- 22 June 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I oppose this planning application, because it will expand the capacity of Luton Airport. There are a large number of reasons why I oppose it, but I will restrict myself to the most important reasons. 1 It will lead to unacceptable additional noise and air pollution. I recognise that the airport owners are proposing some measures to limit noise, but the fact remains that the whole point of the proposed changes at the airport is to hugely increase passenger capacity by 77%, so there will be an absolutely massive increase in the number of flights. The existing number of flights already ruins the peace of our garden at weekends in the spring, summer and autumn. A 77% increase is completely unacceptable. Even if there is some minor reduction in the noise per aircraft, this in no way fully compensates for the much greater frequency of aircraft going overhead. We live in North Harpenden and there are tens of thousands of neighbours who will be severely affected. This is simply not an appropriate site for a major airport. 2 It will stretch an already overloaded local transport infrastructure beyond breaking point. Despite the extra lane, the M1 motorway already moves at snail's pace from junction 10 to the M25, north and southbound, for much of the day. Local roads are similarly overstretched and the train line is already like cattle trucks for much of the day. There simply isn’t any slack. 3 Quite apart from the impact on my area specifically, I feel that it is wrong in principle to meet the projected demand for air flights. The impact on the environment, in particular in relation to man-made climate change, is unacceptable. As a society, we should not be limitlessly adding additional fight capacity.