Gatwick Airport expansion update
It’s a second runway by the backdoor which will have devastating impacts on the environment and residents of Sussex, Surrey and Kent
Communities Against Gatwick Noise Emissions (CAGNE), the umbrella aviation community and environment group, mounted a challenge with a team of experts to oppose the Gatwick Airport Development Consent Order (DCO) for a new runway, which is currently progressing through the government’s appointed planning inspectorate. The hearings are expected to be completed on 12th August leaving it to the new Secretary of State to make the final decision on Gatwick’s expansion plans.
“When you are up against such a multimillion-pound organisation, with their string of highly-paid experts and legal team, we had to look to those who sympathise with our community and environmental predicament,” said Sally Pavey, Chair of CAGNE.
“We put out a call to residents of Sussex, Surrey and Kent to support us in putting together a team of legal and qualified experts in climate change and planning, to oppose what we saw as a new runway by the backdoor and not complying with policy. What Gatwick specified was misleading residents into thinking that this second runway already existed, when in fact Gatwick has only ever had one runway that it can use at any one time. In fact, it boasted about being the busiest single runway in the world.”
From then on, CAGNE set about raising funds, hoping that residents would support the belief that the only way to beat such a foreign-owned airport, with shareholders’ profits at stake, was to form a team of qualified experts that could match Gatwick’s jargon-filled submissions and meet them on a level footing, to convince the planning inspectorates that the new runway was not sustainable.
“Time and time again, we have seen Gatwick’s management team seek to dismiss our findings as we are not qualified noise experts, using consultations with residents as a tick-box exercise. They attempted to belittle our concerns as nothing more than nimby-ism. It was imperative that we work with an organisation that could challenge Gatwick’s submissions of presenting “average” aviation noise, when nobody hears aircraft noise as averaged over time.”
In late June, we saw that Gatwick Airport must revise their noise envelopes at Deadline 6 of the planning process (DCO).
“We hope this might be good news for residents, who already suffer arrival and departure noise both day and night. The fact that Gatwick have been forced to review this must be a reflection of the challenge our noise expert has submitted.”
Gatwick have also had to make an additional project change in the form of an onsite wastewater treatment plant, thanks to evidence submitted. “It is now down to us to ensure that this is a mandatory part of the planning for Gatwick’s new runway, as Thames Water can’t cope with the extra sewerage from what is the equivalent of a small settlement, let alone today’s volume.”
The end of the process is in sight, with closing statements on the 12th August. Until then, CAGNE continues to question and challenge Gatwick Airport management to tell the truth about the ramifications of the new runway in terms of: aviation noise increases; congestion through lack of surface transport and funding; two high court rulings in favour of the planet when it comes to carbon budgets and burning fossil fuel; and a decline in air quality (as standards for the air that we breathe have fundamentally increased).
CAGNE has faced increases in the original budget, but we see this as a positive as, for every knock-back from Gatwick, we have been able to submit more evidence against a new runway.