Campaigners join forces to challenge Gatwick Airport's Master Plan

Under the banner 'Gatwick's Big Enough,' community groups around Gatwick have joined forces with GACC to challenge Gatwick Airport over its master plan proposals.

The group says the master plan proposes to create an airport that is as big as Heathrow is today.

It says there would be an increase in aircraft movements in the next 10 years to 390,000 pa (1050 or more per day) and passenger numbers to 70.0 mill pa (190,000 or more per day). The groups says all of which will bring 'increased misery to thousands through noise, pollution and impacts on local infrastructure.'

The group says the plan would also bring a massive increase in carbon emissions caused by the additional flights estimated at an increase of almost 1MtCO2(circa 37% increase) per annum by 2050.

It says it campaign has got off to an early start with challenges to Gatwick's use of the Planning Permitted Development processes. The initial submission to the Planning Inspectorate for Gatwick's Stage Two, the expansion and active use of the emergency/northern runway, has been made and group is now in the process of preparing challenges to these proposals.

Chairman, Peter Barclay, said: “Whilst this growth plan may be within the airport's own boundaries, the negative impact on communities extends many miles from Gatwick's

borders. In a society where there is increasing awareness of the downside of aviation activities, our members want us to ensure these developments are properly contained.”

A spokesman for Gatwick Airport said: “Gatwick recognises that future growth should be both economically and environmentally sustainable and is committed to delivering any future growth plans in this way. We will carry out a number of detailed studies to assess the impacts and benefits of our standby runway plan on our local region and will be consulting on the plans next year.

“The airport also recognises the importance of faster global and local action from all sectors to tackle climate change, and any future growth will be delivered in line with government policy.”