Representation by Phillip Lucas
- Date submitted
- 14 September 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
If this project is given a green light this house would be unbearable to live in as would many houses around here. Currently there are on average 390 departures per day and this would rise by 270 per day giving 660 departures per day, as most departures occur in the mornings the departures will be like Heathrow every 45 seconds and non stop. Why move it North towards houses when South is away from houses. According to airport watch flight times are from 6am daily up to 23.30, but a certain amount outside of these times is permitted by quota. Yet Gatwick regularly has departures starting most days at 5.30am and it is not un common for up to 50 plus aircraft to land after midnight. When aircraft take off here, any conversations taking place has to stop or you can’t be heard, and in the summer when windows or doors are open and the TV is on you lose about 15 seconds of TV content as you can’t hear the tv over departing aircraft and the current 26L runway is 150m south of here. The proposed northern runway would see aircraft go right over our house, it will be really bad and noisier. If this goes ahead there will be aircraft coming in all through the night as this high amount of departing aircraft will all have to return. Gatwick are really bad at communicating with local residents I have had a few requests to them and it always falls on deaf ears and the “not interested” replies come back, we have had damage in our garden from the wind generated by powerful landing aircraft as they come in, all our trees get stripped of leaves early and the smell of aviation fuel hangs around after certain aircraft, and we put up with it because we moved close to an airport, however we put up with the current flights not doubling them. Our house was built in the late 1900s and to have 600 aircraft with loud engines departing right over it could have a damaging impact, and there would be no point in contacting them as I know the outcome. Whilst the smaller quieter ones climb fairly quickly to about 300m above our house, with average 70 to 80 decibels, the larger noisier ones are 213m above us and are close to100 decibels as they pass and that would get worse. It’s not just the rise in aircraft noise that’s an issue, it’s the rise in traffic and footfall, already passengers park their cars in residential streets for 2 weeks at a time, or park randomly in people’s driveways. We had a car up the road from us for 3 weeks recently parked within 20m of a junction, no one was interested (police wise) and busses and lorries struggled to pass it. Gatwick introduced a £5 drop off charge so people now drop off in the village by the bus stop and take the bus in, so it’s not stopped people being dropped off it’s moved them to outer villages. There are quieter airports that could use expansion if demand is really there, Gatwick say it will create 14,000 job vacancies already there are many vacancies for jobs, to increase that would mean more people would move into the area that currently has high house prices, more people moving here puts more demand on housing and we are already building on too much farm land. There might be a demand for take off slots in the mornings but later in the afternoon’s departing aircraft drop off in numbers as the slots don’t suit them, it’s not uncommon to have a few minute break in departures. I can’t see a single reason to allow this expansion and apart from Gatwick who would gain from this.