LITTLE CANFIELD PARISH COUNCIL
Clerk
Mrs. Rosemary Shelley
6, Long Croft
Takeley
Bishop’s Stortford
Herts. CM22 6RT.
Tel. No. 01279 870735
E-mail: rosemary
The Managing Director,
BAA Stansted,
FREEPOST CL4055,
Chelmsford,
Essex. CM1 3BR.
1st March, 2006
Dear Sir,
Your Consultation on the Proposed Second Runway at Stansted Airport
We have now had an opportunity to consider your detailed proposals for a second runway.
You have produced a comprehensive and lengthy document containing four options on which you wish the public to comment. We regret that you did not include a fifth option – no runway at all. It is understood that you believe that local people want to have a say on what the new runway should look like. That would be perfectly correct, but surely you must realise by now that, according to the poll carried out by Uttlesford District Council, a large majority of the residents closest to the airport do NOT support the construction of another runway at all. In 1984 a public enquiry concluded that a second runway would be an environmental catastrophe, even an unprecedented and wholly unacceptable major environmental and visual disaster. What has changed, except the situation itself. The plans today are far more extensive, more disruptive and far beyond what is necessary or acceptable to the local community.
It is all very well to consider how a new runway should be sited in one place or another, but not to know exactly what changes will have to be made to the infrastructure outside the airport and how they will be financed to meet the needs of an envisaged vastly increased travelling public is reprehensible. The rail services between London and Cambridge are already under considerable strain to serve the increased needs of airport traffic. This is apparently being achieved by downgrading services for local people. It seems that little can be done because the lines into London Liverpool Street are insufficient to cater for more trains. Should not this and other transport problems arising from more air passengers be a major consideration? There is little in your document on these matters apart from the likelihood of ‘further discussion at a later date’. We need this information NOW.
You are planning for the long term. Many people are now talking about the continuity of fuel supplies for travel, particularly air travel; because of the vast quantities of oil consumed by aircraft. Have you considered how such a scenario could impact on your operations and your revenue?
We are not experts on carbon dioxide emissions and the effects of global warming, but we do know that there will be more noise, more air pollution, more congestion, more traffic. In addition we would like to know where BAA is going to find the extra water that will be required to service a vastly expanded airport, or perhaps you feel it is not up to you. The south east as a whole is notoriously known as a very dry area, and the expansion of the airport, together with Mr. Prescott’s plans for housing development, will literally drain us dry. Is it fair and reasonable to attempt to expand an airport that seemingly (apart from yourselves), few people, including various airlines and other public bodies, feel is financially viable or sustainable in an area where resources will be strained to the limit?
We have said that we are not technical experts, but that does not stop us wanting to know what physical effect your plans will have on our life – after all we were here first, and there are still quite a few who were in the area even before the present runway was built. Although you are not directly responsible for flight paths, you must have some idea where they will be or you could not provide information on noise contours, and those directly affected by them should be told at this juncture where they will be. Where will any stacking areas be located?
Information regarding environmental analyses carried out is very scant. Full details should be published, and we need to know also your projections on night flights, a matter that concerns local people a great deal.
When the question of the airport expansion was first raised, the construction of three runways, making four in total, was envisaged. Are you going to be satisfied with just one extra runway? If not, how do your present plans fit in with yet more runways? Should not such a scenario be taken into account? Or was it just a ploy to con local residents into feeling happy that there will only be one extra runaway instead of three?
From the above you will see that we are most unhappy about the whole project. Until you can prove the absolute need for the runway, and more importantly the support you will definitely receive from airlines in particular to enable you to operate at a profit without subsidy from your other airports, we can see no justification for you to proceed with your plans at all.
Yours faithfully,
Clerk to the Council