Southend Airport Planning Application
CALL IT IN!
We need a Public Inquiry.
NEWSFLASH Development Control Committee votes 14 to 3 in favour of approving the planning application Read all about it…
Stobart employees arrive for the meeting
Forty-four members of the public had registered to address the Committee but under Council rules only one is allowed to speak. Immediately prior to the meeting, SAEN Chairman, Kiti Theobald, was selected to represent the views of the public in opposing the planning application. Her speech was welcomed with enthusiastic applause from the public gallery, to which the chairman of the Development Control Committee, Brian Kelly, took exception. It was notable that no such objections were forthcoming three minutes later when airport employees who had been brought in on a Stobart coach applauded Alastair Welch, the airport’s managing director.
The Officers’ Report has been published, recommending that Southend Council’s Development Control Committee approves the planning application. Have a read through SAEN’s objection to see why this recommendation is wrong.
The Development Control Committee is going to meet to make their decision on the planning application on Wednesday 20th January at 2pm in the Council Chamber at Southend Civic Centre. Make sure you get there early to ensure you get a seat in the Public Gallery.
We are now focussing on getting the planning application called in by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for examination at a public inquiry. This will give all parties the opportunity to present their evidence and it would take the decision out of the hands of Southend Borough Council, which has a financial interest in the airport, as it is the landlord.
As far as we can see, the only people who wouldn’t want the application called in are either those who want the decision made quickly without proper examination or those who are concerned that under full scrutiny, the benefits of the application would look weak.
For details of how to ask for the decision to be called in, visit the Write to them page.
Insist that they respond to you in writing.
About SAEN
SAEN was formed to campaign against the runway extension at Southend Airport.
We are not anti Southend Airport, but we are against an extension to the runway at Southend Airport that would dramatically increase the number of flights over Southend. We are a campaign group of concerned residents opposed to the extension of the runway at Southend Airport rather than a Southend Airport protest group.
What is there to object to?
An extended runway and an increase in flights at Southend Airport would mean:
- A plane low over your house every 5 minutes at busy times
- Weak restrictions on night flights
- A huge increase in noise and air pollution
- Even more traffic on our congested roads
- Eastwoodbury Lane closed
- A number of people losing their homes
- The value of everyone else’s homes falling, putting even more people into negative equity
- Very few new jobs being created
- A decline in the local economy
- Passenger forecasts are unrealistic, making the airport expansion an expensive waste of everyone’s time.
- Public Safety Zones appear not to be taken seriously
- An increase in harmful greenhouse gas emissions
Quote of the week
What is the point of a public consultation over a chosen option, or am I missing something here? Surely the object of a public consultation is to consider all options and then take it from there. I can’t help feeling that a public consultation is just a cosmetic excercise that they are legally obliged to put out and decisions have already been made.
