Green Living: London City Airport expansion
By Andrew Williams
It's always good to get feedback from readers. As well as giving me food for thought, it also reassures me that I'm not just talking to myself. As always, please feel free to drop me a line.
This week, Alan writes from E16 on the thorny issue of City Airport expansion.
He recommends that I check out the anti-expansion campaign website, fighttheflights.com.
There is certainly a lot of interesting background information, as well as some hair-raising footage of a "hard landing" at the airport.
Of course there's nothing too controversial about saying that flying is bad for the environment.
Emissions from flights aren't just a big percentage of the UK's carbon footprint, they're also an area which is continuing to expand rapidly. Hence the debate around the need for City Airport to broaden its horizons.
There are other arguments in favour of expansion - look at the increased business revenue that comes into the area as a result of the airport, and the advantages for businesses based in Canary Wharf which need to meet colleagues and clients on the continent.
While technology like video-conferencing is improving, it's by no means perfect. Surely City Airport is a vital part of our economic mix?
The answer may come from the headline on the Fight the Flights website - "Anti expansion, not anti aviation".
No-one is saying that flying should stop overnight or that all airports should be closed. But expansion at City, Heathrow and beyond seems to fly in the face of the Government's commitment to tackle climate change.
As someone whose office is directly beneath the City Airport flight path, I would suggest that further expansion would be a big mistake.
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Thank you for finally reporting that their is opposition to the expansion of London City Airport - Its been a long time coming.
If you ask anyone in E16 they will tell you they hate the airport and we don't need more flights.
But who listen to the people these days?
Thank you for finally giving me a chance to voice my real concern at the expansion of LCA.
LCA is expanding into a huge airport and it is affecting people well beyond the estimated noise contour. 120,000 ATMs means air traffic the size of that at Luton. The noise over Tower Hamlets is above 57 LAeq in many areas but since LCA has not taken any reliable noise readings for the last 8 years or so, I do not believe that they really know where the true noise contours start and end.
As to air quality monitoring there is a recent EU requirement
which requires all member states to produce reports for all airports with 50,000 movements or more before the end of the year. They require a 16 week period of public consultation and I would like to know if LCA will consult all residents regardless of the borough.
I also draw your attention to a recent article where GMB (aviation union) have demanded that LCA bring in independent monitors to assess the impact of fumes on passengers and staff. The regular discharges of toxic fumes propelled into the customer lounges have potentially long-term health implications. Some employees have already been taken ill as a direct result of working in areas exposed to the poisonous fumes.
There are studies from Australia and Germany on how aviation noise affects children and studies from the United States on health.
Aviation in general, and LCA in particular, remind me of the behaviour of the Tobacco Industry 40 years ago. I suppose they hope that if they stick their heads in the sand for long enough all opposition will just melt away.
JBP