Representation by Jean Tedder
- Date submitted
- 11 September 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I moved to my current address in the early nineties. The years when the airport was active were amongst the most miserable I have ever had in my own home.
The vibration made me fear for the very roof above my head, whilst the noise, interrupting conversations as it did, meant I saw my friends less often as they preferred to meet elsewhere, and I do not drive. I don't blame them, having to pause whilst planes roared over, during which time it was impossible to hear anything else, made our afternoons far less enjoyable. When I was alone, the noise drowned out my television and my radio at regular intervals.
Loss of sleep affected both the son and daughter who still live with me, who needed to continue work as best they could under the circumstances. My son particularly suffered as he worked shifts and had the challenge of trying to manage regularly changing sleep patterns that were constantly being disturbed, annoying for a warehouse worker -but fatigue could potentially have more serious effects on the performance of a train driver or a doctor.
The noise also affected my grand-daughters, who were studying at [Redacted] at that point. Heaven knows how the teachers managed to make sure everyone kept the thread of the lessons.
Hearing that this plan would mean not only a resumption of flights but a huge increase in their number makes me wonder how my life will be bearable. It makes me wonder how students will manage, during study, but most of all during their exams, knowing that their futures depend on their performance in a hot and noisy gym. The signs posted on the doors which read "Silence exams in progress" will hardly influence the planes to quiet down. The children in school now are the doctors or lawyers or engineers of the future - unless of course they fail to achieve their potential and then they will be struggling for the rest of their lives to make up the ground that they have lost.
Most of all it makes me wonder why it is necessary to subject us to this torture. This isn't something that will let up after a day or two, or something that you get used to after a while, I remember it as unrelenting and stressful and the plan is to make it even worse than that.
I have no idea how households in Manston will cope with the increased road traffic required to service the hub, and to move goods onwards, as well as the airport noise and disruption