The vision is patently irrational. You cannot increase the quality of life for residents and workers by subjecting them to increased aviation noise, pollution and the utter misery of night flights. Other than by the poorly-used railway station, the airport is reachable only via residential roads. The local road network is not able to cope with the proposed volume of traffic and this will have a negative impact on the local area.
It is important to note that the Saxon Business Park is in fact largely going to be filled with existing businesses relocated from Eldon Way in Hockley, which is proposed for demolition by the Hockley Area Action Plan. It is therefore dishonest to suggest to the Secretary of State that the Saxon Business Park is bringing exclusively new jobs to the area.
It must also be noted that it is overly optimistic to suggest that large numbers of employers will relocate next to an airport that will impose noise disruption, danger and an increasingly congested road network. If anything, there is a danger that many employers, like the local population, would prefer to move away.
Expanded operations at the airport have now been in place for just over one year and it is now clear that the overwhelming majority of passengers are UK citizens who are travelling abroad. Precise information is not yet available on the number of foreign tourists attracted to LSA, but we will work to secure this information before the examination.
However, to provide an interim guide, if approximately 800,000 UK passengers have flown abroad, that is equivalent to a trade loss of £316 million which equates to 12,640 jobs lost from the Essex and London economy. (Based upon UK average of £395 spent abroad per passenger.)
The JAAP is grossly misleading in failing to make any reference to the huge scale of loss of revenue to this area.
Another area that has been overlooked is the massive loss of wealth to the area caused by devaluation of property under and near the flight path.
Again, information is not yet finalised but reports from surveyors specialising in compensation suggest that some homes will have been devalued by up to 15%, many hundreds, possibly thousands by between 5 and 10%. If it is indeed true that 4500 homes have lost what is claimed, then the local economy may have been deprived of over £50m.
We really must challenge the statement "and with only a fraction of the residential noise impacts of other airports". The number of complaints from people concerning noise belies this statement. Furthermore, the area is already subject to low level flights both visible and audible en route to London City Airport, which has been added to by those to LSA.
We must also challenge the statement that "The runway extension is a key factor in the ability of the airport to accommodate the latest advances in medium sized passenger aeroplanes (100 to 150 seats), which are quieter and more fuel efficient than their predecessors, and can take-off in shorter distances and depart more quickly from local airspace." This is not correct; even extended to 1799m, the runway remains short. Future fuel efficient airliners require longer runways.
Finally, the suggestion that a new link road has been built to facilitate access to the airport needs to be challenged. At the Public Inquiry into the stopping up of a section of Eastwoodbury Lane and Footpath 121, it was categorically denied by LSA that this route would be used to access the airport. It was claimed that traffic would be directed via Manners Way, an existing residential street.