Southend Airport has more housing in its immediate vicinity than any other regional airport in the UK. It is therefore grossly misleading for the JAAP document to suggest that the local councils have done anything to limit or reduce the number of people who suffer from aircraft noise. Southend and Rochford councils have failed in their duty of care to the local population by doing everything in their power to increase flights and noise. The disgraceful decision to allow night flights poses a serious threat to the health of the people who now have to suffer absolute misery caused by the irresponsible and callous expansion of the airport. The document is unsound, it is based upon a series of false assumptions, including the claim that it will create jobs and that the airport is in any way "sustainable". Operations at Southend Airport are sucking money out of the UK economy by encouraging ever larger numbers of people to take holidays abroad. And it is impossible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by flying ever more aircraft. The first year of operations at the airport indicate that around 500 jobs have been created, of which around half were transferred from Stansted. However an analysis provided by SEEFoE suggests that the number of tourists who travelled abroad exported around £300 million from the UK economy, which is equivalent to over 10,000 jobs lost to the Essex/London economy. Worse still the councils have squandered public money on various facilities associated with the airport and the airport has stripped £millions out of the local economy by devaluing property near the airport and flight path.
The last JAAP process showed that around 80% of respondents did not want the high growth scenario for airport expansion and an opinion poll last year showed that 61% of local people opposed expansion. Why have local views been ignored so completely?