Representation by Fiona Simmons
- Date submitted
- 8 October 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I am writing as a local resident on the flight path to oppose granting a DCO 24/7 Freight Hub at Manston.
The main points I intend to make in relation to the application are the effects of noise and pollution on the health and wellbeing of the local population and the natural environment in general, and in particular the impact of night noise
Occasional night flights have woken me up in the past, despite sleeping in the basement, and I have seen a plane coming over my street release grey clouds of what I can only assume to be aviation fuel, full of carcinogenic toxins.
Former, experienced owners of the airport have failed to make it commercially viable without regular night flights. Worryingly, the applicant proposes no enforceable cap on the number of night flights.
According to the World Health Organisation , noise is the second largest environmental cause of health problems, just after the impact of air quality (particulate matter). This proposal will unleash both on the people of Thanet, a deprived area which already has poor health outcomes.
Long-term average exposure to noise can trigger elevated blood pressure, ischaemic heart disease. A recent review, suggested that risk for cardiovascular outcomes such as high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke, increases by 7 to 17% for a 10dB increase in aircraft or road traffic noise exposure (Basner et al., 2014). Research by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel has shown that people who live below an airport flightpath are more than 80% more likely to have type 2 diabetes than people who live in quieter areas. Psychological health outcomes make similarly grim reading.
The report admits significant adverse effects are likely as a result of increased noise in the communities in the vicinity of the airport and flight paths (Ramsgate; Manston; Wade; West Stourmouth; and Pegwell Bay), but does not admit that there will be significant consequences for the health of those living in these communities.
Impact of the proposal on the natural environment and biodiversity: The environmental impact of the proposed development, onshore and offshore, on Thanet’s large number of nationally and internationally designated conservation sites, many of which the applicant expects to overfly, and five of which are immediately adjacent to the proposed airport site, needs further examination.
These sites provide a complex mosaic of habitats of international importance for their intertidal chalk, chalk cliffs, caves, chalk reef, species (such as blue mussel beds and piddocks), dunes, saltmarsh and mudflats, especially known for their migratory and breeding bird species, including waders and wildfowl.
Direct impacts, like increased noise levels, disturbance by aircraft, night noise, deposition of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, the airport surface runoff into PegwellBay, need to be considered, and indirect impacts such as those arising from increased traffic impacts or the impacts of infrastructure development associated with the proposals.
The cumulative impacts of other developments in the area have been underestimated on areas with environmental designations close to the development site.