Representation by Paul J Mitchell
- Date submitted
- 21 October 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I have lived at this address for well over 30 year’s in my village, which is located just outside the M25 junction 5, with the A21 running North and South less than a quarter mile from the village. As a resident I have come to notice over the 30 year’s that air traffic has increased substantially over head of my property. Living by the M25 and A21 I can’t do anything about the traffic noise constantly in the back ground when sitting in the garden or laying in bed with window open during the summer month’s and warm springs. Additional aircraft noise will make living here intolerable. It’s bad enough witnessing large airliner’s flying just a few hundred feet above the roof’s of our houses due to some sort of air traffic control crisis. So much so a few years ago an aircraft flew so low I could read the details on the side of the craft with the naked eye. This is outrageous and scary for residents who live here now worried about an aircraft crashing on our houses. With the development of Gatwick Airport and additional Runway leading to increase of terminal size to cope with the extra travellers is not something I cherish for living under the flight path of even more aircraft flying over my house. Surely with increased aviation fuel costs flying will become the privilege of the elite and the like’s of common folk will no longer afford the luxury of increased airfare’s. Pollution from air travel here was so much lower during Covid Lockdown. You could actually notice how much sweeter the air was here to breath with little or no aircraft flying overhead polluting the air. I grant you there was little or no vehicle traffic as well. However in an over populated area of the South East of England I don’t see how you can justify expansion of London Gatwick Airport ever. Air travel should be discouraged at all costs not enlarging existing UK airport capacity. This crazy continuous building on Greenbelt land to satisfy the greed of Building Developers and BAA airports must rein in their greed for money using the British economy benefit to the country as the excuse for expansion. Within 100 years the world Oil reserves will be all but gone. Albeit I will be long dead and gone by the time oil run’s out. I suggest alternative methods of transporting holiday maker’s and business men by finding other ways for reaching their destinations. After dodging the bullet of Boris Johnson’s hair brain plan for an additional airport in the Thames Estuary , we definitely don’t need any development for Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, or Standstead airport’s.