Representation by Julie Helen Collier
- Date submitted
- 27 October 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I wish to register my serious objections to the proposed Gatwick expansion. Gatwick is already a very large busy airport with flights throughout the night. In 2022 32.9 million passengers used the airport - they are predicting 75 million by 2038. The latest proposal to introduce a second runway by stealth through the use of the current standby runway appears to me to fly in the face of previous well thought out decisions to refuse additional runways. What has changed to now consider this expansion. Climate considerations are driving a reduction in travel activity with high emissions – i.e. flying and road travel. We have seen this year first-hand the impacts on our climate and resulting events. A quick glance at Gatwick’s sustainability steps include electric vehicles around the airport and encouraging more people to use the train to get to Gatwick – hardly a strong position to offset a proposed doubling of flights and associated travel by millions of passengers. In fact one might consider it cynical greenwashing. One of Gatwick’s arguments is economic development resulting in increased employment and tourism benefits for the local area. Kent Sussex and Surrey is already an area with low unemployment and high average wages – unlike other parts of the country. An ideal opportunity for levelling up would be to improve airports in other parts of the UK particularly those who have lost the benefits of HS2. No areas designated for levelling up would benefit from Gatwick expansion – rather the reverse by diverting jobs and people away from those areas. There is already far too much concentration of airports and flights in the South East with the proximity of Heathrow. Surely a more sustainable approach would be to further develop regional airports to save so many people travelling to the airports not to mention the pollution associated with the high volumes of people and flights. Obviously this would impact profits at Gatwick which I consider to be the sole driver of it’s current management and ownership, in particular Stewart Wingate. Having been MD since 2009, (Redacted) There was an effective campaign against this resulting in a correction – without which some local areas would have been totally blighted. I am mentioning this to highlight our lack of trust in him as a fit and proper person to be co-chair of the Aviation Council and to spearhead further expansion of Gatwick.