Representation by Butterworth Family (Butterworth Family)
- Date submitted
- 23 June 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Growth at Luton Airport will significantly impact our community, villages nearby and our family directly, most notably through increased noise and congestion on the roads and railways and indirectly through increased greenhouse gases. Furthermore, the applicant, Luton Rising, has failed to articulate a reasonable balance between the economic benefits of growth and the clear and substantial environmental costs. In addition, Luton Rising does not have either the management skills or access to funding to achieve the applications proposals and there are considerable doubts as to the support of either the existing concessionaire or a different concessionaire to achieving the applications goals, not least because there is little evidence of the demand the application assumes, other London airports are planning to grow in geographic areas where Luton Airport needs to capture customers and there is considerable uncertainty as to whether the government’s Jet Zero targets can be achieved without demand management being introduced. Luton Rising is essentially proposing that noise levels remain fairly consistent with noise levels that exceeded the extant planning consent limits in 2019, despite the fact the planning consent limits are scheduled to fall substantially until 2028 under the existing planning permission (and under the 19mppa planning application subject to call-in by two Secretary’s of State), thus the noise proposals fail to meet either the government’s policy aims of minimising and reducing noise levels or sharing the benefits of (noise reduction) technology between the aviation industry and communities affected by noise. We believe the application should be declined.