Representation by Lingfield Parish Council (Lingfield Parish Council)
- Date submitted
- 17 November 2023
- Submitted by
- Parish councils
Lingfield Parish Council Gatwick DCO Response Lingfield Parish Council represents a rural village surrounded by agricultural countryside, with a population of about 4,700 (2021 Census) and covering about 8.75km2. It is in the Metropolitan Green Belt in the district of Tandridge. It has a historic core with Medieval buildings set within a large Conservation Area. The parish area sits directly under the flight paths of incoming aircraft joining the Instrument Landing System (ILS) and this fact is accepted by the residents who chose to move into the area and tolerated to a degree by those who have lived here since before Gatwick became a significant airport. The residents, however, have been subjected to a steady increase in the number of flights both during the day and because of the generous allowance Gatwick has for night flights, arrivals all through the night as well. This number peaked in 2019 but is almost back to that peak since the disruption caused by the Covid Pandemic. Departures are noisier and despite the predominant wind direction being south westerly, over the last few years there has been a larger proportion of flights departing to the east, sometimes almost half the departures over a period of several months, as seen in the Gatwick Airport Ltd Noise Quarterly Reports. With the departing aircraft vectored by air traffic control to get onto their routes as quickly as possible, the increased noise of aircraft turning as they are taking off, is spread across Lingfield and the surrounding countryside. The DCO proposal to increase the annual number of flights by more than 100,000 is going to directly impact the residents of the parish area, making the stream of flights continuous with the potential to continue at a higher level of intensity in the late evenings and early mornings. Sleep disturbance is already experienced by many residents, and this is set to get much worse as the spread of the flights is expanded into the 24-hour period. Currently there is no nighttime mitigation in place. Additionally arriving aircraft are turning into the ILS later and often with their undercarriage down, adding to the increased volume of noise heard at the ground as the planes are banking and applying braking mechanisms to slow down (both flaps and undercarriage). Although Lingfield is a medium sized village, it is not near any major road networks or industry and the ambient noise levels without the aircraft is low, especially during the night. The Parish Council also consider the approval of the DCO will lead to a significant increase in surface traffic which is going to have a severely detrimental impact on the wider community. It will affect our own residents with delays to their travel to work and to the local secondary schools in East Grinstead, which already suffers congestion from the sheer weight of traffic because of the massive housebuilding programme being delivered by West Sussex. Any difficulties on the M23 cause the traffic to re-route to the A22 via East Grinstead and Lingfield becomes an unofficial East Grinstead “by-pass” clogging the roads through the village. The anticipated increased number of passengers will be expected to get to and from the airport by car, as the train service is already at capacity. There is no scope to accept any more rail passengers because of the physical constraints on the line. There is no space for freight either. The DCO proposal includes using open green land for car parking, which is unacceptable environmentally – especially as the loss of the carbon capturing vegetation is to facilitate the increase in CO2 emitting aircraft, which really is at odds with the Government’s intention to be net zero. Lingfield village also suffers from unofficial airport parking, where passengers park in our residential streets and take a taxi to the airport. There are also the “meet and greet” valet type parking companies, who bring the cars collected from their customers and park them in the open fields in the green belt around the village without the appropriate planning permissions, just moving to another field if they are subjected to a planning enforcement visit. A larger Gatwick will need proportionately greater supplies, which can only be transported in by truck. The premise of the DCO is also to propose to increase the freight carried by the long-haul flights into and out of the country. Again, this can only be transported by road, there being no capacity for freight on the already full London-Brighton rail line. All this extra HGV traffic will increasingly damage the road surfaces and add to the misery of congestion. This already creates tailbacks and delays on the local road network, which is running at capacity, especially at the junction of the A264 with the A22 in East Grinstead, as is the M23 and the M25. The surface traffic for the increased passenger numbers, support staff, freight and supplies will add to the air pollution that is generated by the aircraft, providing an unhealthy mix of Nitrous Dioxide and Fine Particulates, as well as all the additional CO2, at a time when we are trying to reduce our country’s carbon footprint. Staffing will be an issue. The surrounding area does not have significant unemployment. Any workers on the lower pay scales won't be able to afford the local housing costs, and there is a significant shortage of "affordable" and social rented properties. Lingfield specifically, and Tandridge generally, has an acute shortage of affordable housing, with a council waiting list of nearly 2,000 families. These new workers will therefore need to be bussed in - which is already happening – because baggage handlers and hospitality/retail staff are often on Zero Hours contracts and can't afford to live locally. Even a pilot for Easy Jet is earning less than £23,000 a year - too little to get a mortgage on properties locally. The average price of houses in Lingfield is about £520,000 (from Zoopla 2023), well beyond the reach even of skilled pilots. Gatwick has already achieved a significant amount of passenger growth over the last 15 years, through increasing the number of flights and mechanisation of many processes from checking in to baggage sorting. This has resulted in a noticeable increase in the noise locally, both in the amount and frequency of noise. Although some airlines are investing in quieter aircraft, the budget lines which predominate at Gatwick do not invest in newer planes as frequently, if at all, and with the sheer number of aircraft, the noise levels are at a record high already. It should be noted that this growth has taken place through permitted development and without any mitigation provided for the local communities which are negatively impacted. The proposal to move the existing "northern" runway 12 metres to the north to allow safe departures all through the day, is not making best use of existing runways. It is the building of a completely new runway in a different location, with the consequence of having to relocate significant amounts of built form to other parts of their site, including the air traffic control tower and the fire station. It is going to build over vast swathes of open countryside for additional parking spaces, all of which adds harm to the local biodiversity and importantly adds additional run-off to the local drainage network. The area floods very frequently and along with the local water and power supply which is inadequate to support the existing airport capacity, there will be more power cuts and floods, including foul water and sewage. Government policy was also to have the additional runway capacity at Heathrow and there is nothing I have seen anywhere in the application materials that provides any evidence that the so-called economic benefits will outweigh the huge harms to the residents under the flight paths, the people using and living near the congested roads, the local and wider environment and CO2 emissions for Britain. Lingfield Parish Council reserves the right to submit further comments to the DCO process and wishes to register as an interested party. Submitted by Cllr Lockwood On behalf of Lee Dunkley, Parish Clerk, Lingfield Parish Council (Redacted)