Representation by The Stirling Family
- Date submitted
- 24 October 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
From: Jeremy & Valerie Stirling (Redacted) To: The Gatwick Expansion Consultation advisory Committee Web address: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/projects/south-east/gatwick-airport-northern-runway/?ipcsection=relreps Our comments: Please find our objections to Gatwick’s plans to build a 2nd runway and probably grow to at least as big as London Heathrow is today. We wish to register our objection to Gatwick’s expansion plans via the building of a second runway for the following reasons: 1. Gatwick is mainly a leisure flight airport. A second runway would mostly give more of the same. 2. IN 2018 THE Government’s national airports strategy specifically recommended a 3rd runway at Heathrow to meet its identified need of increased hub/connectivity capacity for the growth in demand of greater inter-connected business travel services. No growth in demand for leisure travel was identified. 3. The Government is committed to Net Zero. In 2020 The High Court ruled that the Heathrow plans were illegal because they clashed with the Net Zero commitments. Increased leisure flights from Gatwick meet no UK strategic needs and will create an even greater clash with the high court. 4. Gatwick expansion comes with a number of serious negatives: Environmental impact from flight and airport-access travel. Air quality and noise pollution. Increased Night flight disturbance. Insufficient road and rail access facilities. Lack of local/available staff for the new roles. The need to build houses for 15,000+ families. Need for increased new support facilities – housing, medical, schools and more. The false claims about technology (new fuels, quieter engines etc) being the route to Net Zero. 5. The virtual impossibility of improving Gatwick access services: Road bottleneck at Purley, need for a brand new/extra London:Brighton railway line. 6. Finally: Gatwick Airport’s well-deserved reputation as a terrible neighbour to the many communities its flights effect. Gatwick Airport’s plans for a second runway are for the wrong airport, in the wrong place for the majority of customers, meeting no national need, offering the wrong type of services and in serious conflict with very important national objectives on the environment and the Uk’s drive to net Zero. Gatwick’s plans should be vigorously refused. A decision of national importance such as this should be reviewed against true national need, not questionable free market ideology or a Minister’s pet hobby.