LTC Public Meeting, 13th Nov 2009
Leigh Town Council held a meeting this evening to give the public an opportunity to find out more about the airport’s expansion plans and what impact they would have particularly for people living under the flight path in Leigh. Around 180 people attended.
The panel was made up of Rob Matthews and Alistair Welch of Southend Airport, Nigel Holdcroft and Andy Lewis of Southend Borough Council and Denis Walker of SAEN and South East Essex Friends of the Earth.
Roger Wood, a campaigner from LADACAN (the Luton Airport equivalent of SAEN) and the Aviation Environment Federation had accepted an invitation to appear on the panel two days previously, but his invitation was withdrawn a few hours later by Leigh Town Council on the basis that he didn’t live in Leigh.
The airport revealed that during that afternoon, they had concluded negotiations with Network Rail and National Express to build their proposed station at a cost of around £12m. No other new information was forthcoming from them.
David Amess, MP for Southend West was unable to attend the meeting but presented his apologies and a statement in which he asked for the audience to vote on whether they wanted the decision to go to a Public Inquiry. However, there was confusion among the panellists (including those from Southend Borough Council) as to whether it was necessary to call the planning application in before or after the decision was made. Mr Amess’s statement made specific reference to calling the application in after it had been decided by Southend Council’s Development Control Committee and it is possible that he was only talking in terms of an appeal if planning permission was refused. We will investigate this matter further and keep you informed. Update: We now have a copy of Mr Amess’s statement. Analysis to follow shortly.
Towards the end of the meeting Cllr Alan Crystall, a member of Southend Council’s Development Control Committee (DCC), stood up and gave his view that the runway should not be extended. This would have barred him from taking part in the DCC’s decision were it not for the fact that he had already been barred for making comments opposing the expansion previously. He brought up the matter of the Government’s lack of support for expansion to 2 million passengers per year, which was then challenged by Alistair Welch, whose documentation indicates support from the Government.
However, Denis Walker then read out the following statement made by the East of England Regional Assembly in their response to Phase 2 of the JAAP:
The JAAP does include the support and identified role of the airport contained in the 2003 Air Transport White Paper (ATWP). However, contrary to JAAP policy LS1, neither the ATWP nor the East of England Plan identifies growth at London Southend of up to two million passengers per annum (mppa). The two mppa figure was an assumption used in the demand and impact appraisal work and was based on the maximum use of the runways at the major airports and no new runway capacity.
Given that the ATWP supported new runways at Stansted and Heathrow, the role for Southend that is supported was not for two mppa, but to meet local demand and the needs of business aviation. This is reflected in policy E7 and paragraph 4.31 of the East of England Plan.
This is just one example of the numerous factual inaccuracies to be found in the Airport’s planning application and we will share others as they come to light.
