The Government has indicated that it will approve a second runway at Gatwick airport being brought into regular use – but has delayed making a decision on the matter until October.
On Thursday, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was “minded to approve” the plans if certain conditions – such as provisions to minimise noise – are met.
The runway was expected to get the green light on Thursday, but in a statement Alexander said the decision had been delayed for nine months until 27 October to provide “additional time to seek views from all parties on the provisions” required.
Residents living in Charlwood village, Surrey, about a mile from the airport, voiced their opposition to the expansion, telling The i Paper that it would be “devastating”, worsen noise pollution, exacerbate traffic congestion and cause environmental damage.
“This massive, massive increase will just swallow up this historic village of Charlwood that’s been around for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years,” Julie Jones said.
Gatwick wants to move its northern runway, which is currently only used for taxiing or as a back-up, and bring it into full operational capacity by 2030.
The development, which will cost some £2.2bn, will boost capacity by two-thirds to 75 million passengers per year – and mean an extra 100,000 or so flights a year.
“We’ve always had Gatwick as a grey cloud over us,” said Charlwood resident John Shelley. “The concept of enlarging it is absolutely devastating.”
Mr Shelley said he would resist moving as he comes from a “tenth generation family and has roots here” but other people would likely move as they “simply won’t be able to cope”.
The community has already suffered considerable noise disturbance as a result of the airport, Mr Shelley added.
“Gatwick has 24/7 noise,” he said. “It’s one of the few airports that has night flights. We already get woken up at five o’clock in the morning with airplanes and we can’t sleep at night at half past 11 because of airplanes. So that will only get worse.”
The Government has given Gatwick until 24 April to answer how it will meet provisions such as noise mitigation and ensuring a proportion of passengers travel to the airport via public transport to ease congestion on roads.
But local residents said such measures would do little to alleviate the negative impact the expansion would have on the community.
“I live in a listed building,” Mr Shelley said. “This means my walls are thin. It’s 400 years old. How can you insulate that from sound? You can’t. It’s a rural area, so people are outside all the time. In the summer, you have windows open. How is it possible to insulate that from sound?”
Ms Jones, who owns a cafe, 52 The Street, in Charlwood, echoed Mr Shelley’s concerns. Sixty per cent of the buildings in the village are “extremely old and listed”, she said.
“You can’t stick insulation on the 11th century church with beautiful stained glass windows so the vicar can be heard above the sound of roaring engines going overhead – which is already a problem.”
“During the summer, you notice noise pollution – if you want to be in the garden or keep your window open you can’t,” she continued. “So that’s going to become a lot worse. There is a sort of black, sooty film on a lot of things outside – it’s pollution from the airport – and again, that’s without the expansion.”
“It’s not the airport that is our main thrust of worry,” she continued. “It’s the infrastructure. The infrastructure is groaning. You only have to have a breakdown or an accident on the M23 or the M25 and the whole area is gridlocked.”
Ms Jones said that Charlwood, with its narrow lanes, is “used as a bit of a rat-run to get to Gatwick” causing congestion, which is exacerbated by people parking in the village.
“Already we have very busy roads,” said Mr Shelley. “Already we have a motorway that blocks regularly. Already we have full trains. How can the infrastructure cope with the same thing on top? It’s going to destroy the whole niceness of living around here.”
Residents also questioned the economic benefits that the Government and airport bosses have touted as arguments for the plans.
Gatwick’s chief executive, Steward Wingate, has said that the expansion will create 14,000 jobs and generate an additional £1bn a year in economic benefits across the UK.
“Gatwick is for people going on holiday, so you’re shipping people out to France, Spain and everywhere else,” Ms Jones said. “How’s that helping our economy? And they say it will provide employment – the South East has very low unemployment.
“So where will these people come from? Thousands and thousands of employees will have to be shipped in to work at the enlarged airport and that in itself will cause traffic problems and environmental problems.”
She added: “There are plenty of places up north that would cry out for all this extra work.”
Gatwick, in West Sussex, is Britain’s second busiest airport and Europe’s busiest single runway airport, with 40 million passengers using it last year.
Planning inspectors originally rejected the scheme under its current proposals.
Even if the Transport Secretary gives the project her approval in October, it will still need to secure planning permission.
For residents of Charlwood it is just another battle in a decades-long saga.
“We’re a very strong village and we will continue to fight,” Mr Shelley said. “The councils don’t want this. The county councils don’t want this. The MPs don’t want this. It’s purely profit-based. We will continue to fight it.”
Ms Jones said it was “not the airport itself” that residents were objecting to.
“It’s been here for many years. We’ve been here for longer. We live with it. But if you trebled the amount of planes going by, all day, all night, there will be no reprieve whatsoever.”
“It was a good surprise today,” she added. “The fact that it’s being pushed back again to October. But we’ve been here before many, many times. This isn’t new to us. We’ve been having this fight for the last 50, 60 years. For us, the fight goes on.”
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