Representation by Amanda De Pulford
- Date submitted
- 7 October 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
The applicant claims that his proposal has ‘unique’ public and political support. He offers that as a justification for building what he himself compares to ‘Boris Island’- on a site hard up against a settlement of over 40,000 people and a dozen protected habitats!
My submission is that no weight at all can be attached to this claim and that it is both false and misleading.
The political and popular support here is demonstrably for an airport WITHOUT commercial night flights.
But the application before you is plainly for an airport WITH commercial night flights. The applicant says so repeatedly in his application. Indeed, he is asking for an airport with no cap on the number of night flights - and with permission for night flights which are banned on noise grounds from the London airports!
Why do so many think that this application doesn’t include commercial night flights? Because the applicant and his agents have repeatedly reassured the public that he has “no plans for night flights”. He did this throughout the statutory consultation and is still doing it in the press, even in today’s press. Sadly, both local MPs are continuing to pass on this reassurance to the public. The misunderstanding has also been promoted many times on local social media.
Please do not allow your Examination to become another victim of this trickery. There is huge opposition to night flights locally, as polling has repeatedly established. Unfortunately the applicant has obscured his plan for unnumbered, heavily laden, noisy night flights.