5.4.1 Details

I object to the proposed medium growth and high growth of Southend Airport. Living in the flight path we are already subjected to low flying large passenger aircraft coming into Southend Airport for (I assume) maintenance. These planes arrive arrive from 07:00 am and we have known aircraft to come into Southend as late as 23:30. I can only imagine that the huge proposed increase of up to 2 million passngers a year would make our lives unbearable, as well as living in the constant fear that an aircraft could quite easily come down over a densly populated area.

This would be acceptable.

strongly object

As I understand the situation, the Airport already has planning permission for a station, new terminal, control tower and a hotel.It could therefore handle up to 2m passengers a year if the building work was completed. On a personal note I would not be happy with this number of flights as i live in Leigh directly under the flight path.

Real, long-term benefits do not justify the negative impacts. Too highly populated for even this sort of expansion plan.

Rochford and Southend simply do not need this extra development in such an overpopulated and congested area.

As with Scenarios 1 and 2 (a), in Issue 1 under the heading Airport model and infrastructure, it should be noted that the Airport would be vulnerable to both the economic and business risks outlined in previous paragraphs and the consequent decline in economic sustainability could lead to an inability to maintain its infrastructure in the face of increasing safety and security requirements. There is also a risk that the CAA will require an extension to the RESA at the north east end which would reduce the runway length even further, impacting on the Airport's MRO capability.

In the description of the New Railway Station there are references to the Strategic Rail Authority and One Great Eastern, which should be replaced by the Department for Transport and National Express East Anglia respectively.

It is LSACL's view that growth to 1 mppa by 2012 and to 2 mppa by 2030 is very uncertain in this scenario. In the study referred to in our comment on 5.2, Arup conclude that only limited spoke services on smaller aircraft would be attracted with the existing runway. These services would contribute little to the local economy and Arup's forecast is for a net increase in airport related jobs of just 330 in 2020. The present value of the economic benefits from the Airport between now and 2030 would be over £500 less than Scenario 3.

In Issue 2, Future employment role, it is suggested that 3,200 new jobs could be accommodated. This would therefore imply that the vast majority of new jobs would not be airport-related, attracted by the availability of space rather than by a demand for the particular airport location.

The Arup study used the Government's strategic forecasting model with parameters reflecting the type of aircraft likely to use the existing runway. This indicated that 2mppa would be a very optimistic forecast and would probably not be achievable.

The figures of 1500 arrivals and 1500 departures relate to an annual figure of 1 mppa, not 2 mppa.

In Issue 3 under Green Belt, the note says that the boundary would be taken around the airport boundary, but this is not shown on Figure 5.3. There would be very limited opportunities for mitigation of the adverse impacts of the airport without any significant growth.

In Issue 4, LSACL confirms that closure of the existing alignment would be necessary under this scenario. There is a greater need for improvements compared with Scenarios 1 and 2(a) but the proposals do not refer to public transport, cycling or walking.

With alternative & substantially better air transport options available in the London/Essex area already Southend would be better looking at differentiating,at providing alternative industry/business options that aren't available in the area or perhaps in Northern Europe.Reliance on one industry can be devastating when that industry fails as in the recent examples of Longbridge and Luton.Causing large scale environmental & local disruption on such a high economical risk is short sighted.

C and S Associates agree with the identification of site i, the Brickworks site, for residential development.

This site has been identified as a proposed 'area for change' in Section 4.6 of this document and designation of the site for residential development will enable the site to be redeveloped, providing benefits such as enhancing the visual quality of the area, environmental benefits and assisting in enabling Rochford to meet the PPS3 requirement to identify a 15 year housing land supply.

C and S Associates agree with the proposal to amend the green belt boundary as this will be needed to enable redevelopment of the Brickworks site.

The green belt boundary can be amended to enable beneficial development of the Brickworks site to take place without compromising any adjoining green belt. The site can be provided with defensible boundaries which will afford future protection of the surrounding green belt, should it remain, and so development will not threaten the function and purpose of the green belt.