Gatwick Airport
Stop the Expansion of the North Runway

Victoria Chester, Green Councillor for Horley East & Salfords (Reigate and Banstead Borough Council and Horley Town Council) 

I’m Victoria Chester, a Horley Town, and Reigate & Banstead Borough, Councillor for Horley East & Salfords. As a Green Party Councillor for Horley, my home of 20 years and the town most impacted by this project, I feel my responsibility is to assess objectively what is best for our local residents. This sits alongside my own personal concerns about the climate impacts of Gatwick’s plans.

Local people have been sold a story by GAL, of new jobs and economic growth, and at a time of financial struggle, this story has seemed compelling. They tell me about the thousands of jobs they’ve been led to believe the project will bring, but, in reality, jobs earmarked for the Borough only number in the hundreds.

Airports are increasingly automated, with lower-end wages falling by a quarter in recent decades, and most of these new jobs will provide incomes nowhere near enough to afford the average house in Horley. We already have a shortage of affordable housing here (and do we really want any more houses built on floodplains?)

Unemployment rates in the borough are low, and Gatwick can’t fill the vacancies it already has. Since being dumped during the pandemic people haven’t flocked back to the airline industry – the future there is uncertain and Horley residents need a better foundation on which to build their lives.

So, what will we get …

• Loads more traffic – congestion, noise, pollution, road damage – can you imagine the potholes!
• Even worse nuisance parking, already a huge problem in this area 
• Increased risk of flooding, water shortages, sewage overflows (Horley Works are at capacity, now frequently spilling raw sewage onto public land)

Plus all the many other impacts of an airport trying to double its size to that of Heathrow.

What really upsets me, is that people have been given an unclear picture, and don’t truly understand the impact this is going to have; the impact of:

• A 15 year construction period, minimum – that’s nearly a generation’s worth of disruption 
• a 3rd lane to the London Road, with a widened bridge and major roundabout extension
• Land acquisition, and construction vehicle access roads through residential areas 
• Lack of adequate protection against increased noise and air pollution from more aircraft, more traffic and a massive construction project
• No formal assessment of the harm caused to residents living by the 2 huge building sites.
• Loss of green space, mature woodland, and crucial treeline buffers that’ll take 30 years to replenish.
• Highly used, active travel routes to the airport, through Riverside, blocked
• Our beloved parks, chopped up and left unusable during construction – South Horley has little amenity space and this will be lost for years

The list goes on …

People don’t realise because, quite frankly, GAL didn’t really tell them. Most residents didn’t even know there was a consultation, let alone understand the crucial details.

And the reasons for needing to expand just don’t stack up… passenger numbers aren’t back up to where they were pre-pandemic, and most of the increase is in holiday travel – not the business flights GAL says will bring in all the money. 

So, why is GAL even doing this? Who is this project really for? Not local residents, not airport workers … only a tiny minority will truly benefit – those right at the top – the highest earners and the shareholders.

If I really thought this project would, on balance, benefit Horley I would concede so – but it doesn’t. We don’t need this expansion. We shouldn’t even be considering it, and we shouldn’t be allowing residents to be misled into supporting it. 

I object to this application. Thank you.

Councillor Lisa Scott (Charlwood and Hookwood Parish Council)

Charlwood Parish Council is disturbed that nether climate change nor air pollution are given a specific hearing at the start of this examination process. Along with noise, night flights and traffic congestion, these two factors have a significant impact on our community.

Charlwood Parish Council requests that this application is REFUSED. If the application is allowed, we require being party to the s106 agreement, and a condition in line with the following statement be agreed and applied. 

With Manchester’s 2^nd runway, open for around 20 years now yet only operating to 10% of it’s capacity, it is clear that the demand for more air travel is simply not there. Demand will reduce with the increasing number of people like myself, who choose not to fly. Many businesses had the forced experiment of lock down to test the move over to virtual meetings. The significant cost savings made, means the business travel market has stagnated and will not increase significantly and probably not at all.

Our Parish is located in very close proximity to the airport, flanking it on both sides, meaning our residents are impacted in ways and levels not experienced by others. It is unfair to expect our residents to suffer ill health, reduced quality of life and reduced lifespans in the name of cheap travel. 

Air quality is known to have profound effects on human health and longevity and we require Gatwick to fully fund in perpetuity, an air pollution monitoring, with the results being made publicly available (full spectrum in order to future proof for future knowledge and understanding around the health impacts of air quality, like PFAS has been found for water).

Our community suffers significantly from noise pollution. We therefore require an expanded and altered noise monitoring and insulation program, both funded by the airport in perpetuity and results being made publicly available. Noise monitoring locations should be expanded to include currently unmonitored locations such as Hookwood. We are told that because Hookwood lies alongside the current emergency runway, we do not experience noise. I can assure you we already do. 

I have personally recorded noise spikes of 81dB in recent days, and up to 90bD in 2023 in the Hookwood recreation ground, where numerous times I have recorded 75dB. These peaks in noise occur not only in line with certain atmospheric conditions, but also regularly there is a spate of just 2 or 3 extremely loud jets at around 06.30 on Sundays, followed by a move to quieter take offs. This is enough to wake people enough that they cannot get back to sleep. For many residents, this rest period on a Sunday is crucial for their productivity at work. This will only be further exacerbated by more flights.

In a report published this week, the link between noise and Cardio Vascular Disease and noise was made.

Mean noise is an inappropriate measure, as the peaks occur around every 3 minutes, this will be far more frequent with 2 runways in operation, the impact of repeated peaks is significant. 

In order to protect our residents we require adherence to the 2014 offer of no night flights, or at least no night take-offs, which are noisier. T should be no night flights between 23.30 and 06.30.

There is a lack of capacity at local hospitals should there be a major incident. A flight attendant has explained to me how ambulances are not sent when called to attend sick passengers, instead, fire engines attend. 

Our residents are already impacted by road congestion generated by the airport. In order to help minimise increased congestion caused by local traffic, by enabling local and short journeys to be safely completed on foot of by bike, we would require significant renovation / upgrade to all local pavements so that they are in mint condition. Where possible, this should be to LTN120 standard. Additionally, where there are ‘broken’ pavements, meaning the connection between homes / conurbations is not complete, these need to be connected. Examples of such locations include 2/3rds of a mile between Hookwood and Charlwood, and linking the residencies on the periphery of Charlwood to the village center. Ifield Road, Russ Hill and Stan Hill, and along Millfield Road, where the public footpath along the River Mole near Gatwick Museum should be extended to meet the road / pavement.

A rebuild of the junction of A217 and Mill Lane to traffic light controlled, and right turn allowed out of Mill Lane, needs to be funded. This will do some way to mitigate the estimated 9 – 11% of additional airport road traffic that is projected to travel through our Parish. 

Within the airport boundary, we require the provision of pavement along side Perimeter Road North, linking Povey Cross with North and South terminal. The trees along here to be kept cut back. This route from Povey Cross is an easy walk for residents, and could be for many more if the pavements were upgraded as required above, allowing commuters and employees to safely walk / cycle to the airport. 

The barrier at Povey Cross itself must remain in place and limited to it’s current accesses (increased busses would be welcomed). 

We require the airport to provide at least a  £5m infrastructure fund for Charlwood and Hookwood, to enable the Parish to implement future projects that are identified as suitable mitigations to impacts caused by the airport expansion that may not yet have been identified. 

In addition, funding must be provided for the upgrading of the popular pavement / path from Longbridge Roundabout to South Terminal to LTN120 standard. The amount of use this path receives is already high, but could be significantly higher if the path were widened and the surface were renewed. It is imperative that this much used path remain for use by active transport users as it maintains the off-road link from the Westvale Park housing estate in to South Terminal. A vital commuter and employee route. 

The Parish Council also requires a fit for purpose, direct access option for pedestrians and cyclists from Longbridge Roundabout to North Terminal. The current muddy, narrow public footpath in not fit for purpose and there are safety issues. And out of road cycle access must be re-established to North Terminal where currently, cyclists have to use the main roads and roundabout, along with all North Terminal traffic. 

For the construction phase we see little in the way of HGV routeing control or dust control. Our residents must be protected from unnecessary increases in HGV movements, and the associated increase in dust. Therefore we require all HGV routes to be controlled and vehicles directed straight to the motorway. HGVs that are construction traffic are heavier than average. A significant fund must be provided to councils for the maintenance, upkeep and upgrade of our roads, in particular our rural roads. 

Holiday parking by both private and by parking companies, plus mis-use by taxi drivers has meant nearly all roads in our Parish have been made into controlled parking areas by the use of yellow lines an permit parking locations. This means resident’s visitors have no-where to park, yet taxi drivers routinely ignore the restriction as they simply drive off when a parking enforcement officer arrives. Drivers use the verges and woodland as a toilet and litter bin. In order to address the serious anti-social behaviour exhibited by taxi and pick up drivers, we require the airport to work with local councils to fund, in perpetuity, the policing of littering and illegal parking. Ideally this would be done by ANPR in association with appropriate parking controls.

The Parish Council fully supports the comments by other councils on comments, for example, air pollution from Reigate and Banstead Borough Council.

Jonathan Essex, Green County Councillor for Redhill East (Reigate and Banstead Borough Council and Surrey County Council)

I am speaking as a green councillor in Redhill and am a chartered civil engineer and environmentalist opposing this application. 

This DCO application glosses over real impacts of Gatwick’s planned growth:

• 100,000 extra flights a year will increase noise but there are no plans to limit noise or meet the government’s requirement to ban night flights.
• The air pollution modelling doesn’t fit the monitoring data.
• A ridiculously short runway design life underplays the climate impact of flooding. 
• We don’t know where Gatwick plans to get its extra water supply from or the impact of increasing sewage and surface water from Gatwick being pumped into Horley and Crawley sewage works.
• Gatwick’s air pollution, flooding and traffic models haven’t been shared. The Environment Agency and National Highways have refused to comment on them until they are. Now the DCO has started they should be.
• Did you know Gatwick’s plans would increase its road traffic by a third, hence the huge highway works, increase rail congestion but not fund any more rail capacity, increase local road congestion but without better bus infrastructure.
• And where is the joined-up, landscape-wide ecological assessment needed? Missing, I think.
• And the economic case falsely presents Gatwick as a business airport, hypes the jobs benefits and excludes the economic impact of extracting tourism from the UK economy.

Underestimating all these negative impacts will make the mitigations proposed completely inadequate.

Gatwick’s plans have a huge climate impact. But this has been belittled by: discounting future emissions in line with the UK’s Jet Zero strategy, offsetting, omitting the impact of contrails which the UK Climate Change Committee say will triple global warming, overlooking flights that arrive not just leave the airport which will be created by Gatwick’s growth, and ignoring how aviation locks-in economy-wide carbon emissions [including surface transport and wider induced traffic growth, and limiting investment in a green transition]. This overall Gatwick’s climate impact could be as much as a quarter of the UK’s carbon budget by 2038. 

To discount, omit, overlook and ignore. And then to pretend it is insignificant. This is climate denial. To deny this process, and decisions such as this have agency in averting climate breakdown, is literally flying in the face of climate change. 

Gatwick should not compete with Heathrow to be the UK’s biggest climate polluter whilst claiming its climate impacts are insignificant. Instead the UK must limit demand for flights [as called for by the UK’s official climate change advisors. For Gatwick that must start by accepting it is big enough already.

Paul Chandler, Councillor for South Park and Woodhatch Ward (Reigate and Banstead Borough Council) 

Gatwick expansion is a fabulous idea if you are Gatwick Airport Limited and you are driven by the profit motive. Why would a sovereign oil fund not invest in airport expansion so more fossil fuel is burnt? It makes perfect business sense. If I’m supplying aeroplane fuel how can I increase demand for my products? GAL exists to generate profits and not to take account of externalities unless legislation or regulation forces them to do this.

It does not take account of the local impacts in relation to noise and air pollution, traffic congestion, water resources, river pollution. It does not take account of the carbon emissions produced by those flights.

Don’t worry, there’s going to be new technologies to enable low carbon flying. We are going to make aeroplanes more efficient. But those efficiency improvements get smaller and smaller. It is not a linear relationship. And we are talking about a huge increase in the number of flights making any small increments in efficiency irrelevant. This proposal is enabling a large increase in carbon emissions.

Today we heard from the Climate Change Committee that the government met its 2022 carbon budget target (let’s have a round of applause for all those foreign countries now producing the goods we consume). The government is not on track for the next carbon budget targets. So let’s get the country moving on reducing carbon emissions: let’s encourage them to buy electric vehicles, let’s encourage them to buy solar panels, let’s encourage them to install insulation and heat pumps. Let’s get individuals to spend money to solve the problem so we can support business and put money in people’s pockets, well some people’s pockets anyway. So individuals have to do something and spend their money but government hands out oil and gas extraction licences and allows airport expansion to sustain growth, even though it is affecting the climate.

What about demand management? That doesn’t look good does it. Taking something away. Let’s make sure cheap flights to holiday destinations keep our travel industry on track and profitable. The future demand for flights has been questioned and I think we can add to that the emerging picture of climate change. Greek holiday resorts consumed by forest fire damaging homes and endangering life. Extreme temperatures in European city tourist destinations are causing the shutting down of attractions. Tourist hot spots you might call them. Ski resorts creating snow to maintain a white line down a green mountain. Some areas are beset by war and conflict and unlikely to attract visitors other than intrepid journalists. Is there really going to be the predicted demand for flights even without demand management.

Why is this important? Global surface temperature has been at the highest recorded level every day since starting in April 2023 and climate scientists are not exactly sure why this step change is occurring. Is it El Nino? Is it the drop in sulphur aerosols from marine traffic? Is this just a small upward fluctuation in a lower progressive upward trend? Shall we wait and find out or shall we put our minds and our might behind reducing carbon emissions because this is the underlying cause? This proposal does not help reduce carbon emissions.

I trust the Examining Panel recognise the seriousness of the impacts outlined above

Claudia Fisher, Councillor for Storrington and Washington (Horsham District Council)

My name is Claudia Fisher. I’m a Green Horsham District Councillor – but today I’m speaking in an individual capacity and on behalf of all of the people in this world and those to come.

I strongly oppose this Gatwick Airport application for a northern runway for many reasons – Firstly it’s a NEW runway. This is an application for a new runway, which does not comply with the Government’s Aviation Strategy policy. Gatwick does not have 2 runways ‘existing’ that it can operate concurrently today – as such this is a new runway being constructed.

I’d like to counter the submissions of the various business and tourism groups lined up to speak today – there is no economy on a burning planet, the idea of endless growth from a planet with finite resources is a short term mono-dimensional view which ignores the suicidal path this expansion would take us ALL down. I’d also like to say, opposing expansion doesn’t mean our area can’t continue to benefit from Gatwick – but it is big enough already. The sustainable solution is to keep it as it is.

Here are a brief but significant list of reasons for refusal – Increase in aircraft noise, Further decline in air quality, Lack of affordable housing, an offer of insecure low skilled jobs, increased road congestion and overloading of the limited rail infrastructure.

Here’s a quote from Brighton Pavilion Green MP, Caroline Lucas, who’s unable to be here today but said this morning: “As the planetary emergency grows ever more rapidly, it’s ridiculous we’re still even having this conversation about expanding runways whether at Gatwick or anywhere else. The Government’s own independent climate advisors have been crystal clear: building any new runways at all would be fundamentally incompatible with meeting the UK’s climate change commitments.”

In a climate emergency, a new runway would inevitably add a significant amount of carbon and greenhouse gases. Expansion would also increase the risk of flooding and excess sewage entering the river system and the risk of further water stress in an already water stressed area.

Horsham District and much of Crawley is supplied with water by Southern Water – from its Sussex North Water Resource Zone which is sourced from abstraction points in the Arun Valley – locations includes SSSIs and a Ramsar site – all of which are experiencing serious stress due to water shortage. I understand that Gatwick does not currently draw water from the Sussex North Water Resource Zone – but it sits next to the edge of this zone. Water knows no boundaries – water taken from one neighbouring area will inevitably impact that water abstraction impact. This is a major reason, amongst many others I have already listed, for refusing this highly inappropriate, unsustainable and damaging application.

Climate and local campaigners gathered outside Department of Transport Offices in London on Wednesday 27^th November 2024 to coincide with the Government receiving the recommendations of Planning Inspectors on plans to expand Gatwick Airport – to highlight the spare capacity of Eurostar which should be used for international journeys from London instead.

Jonathan Essex, Vice Chair of GACC and Green Councillor on Surrey County Council says, “It is shocking that Eurostar, which has a fraction of the climate impact of flights, is still running at only 40% capacity and could accommodate a further 30 million passengers a year, whilst London’s airports say there is a need to expand. GACC trusts that the advice from the Planning Inspectorate o Government will reflect the unacceptable impact of expanding Gatwick, not least on the climate – and that Eurostar services running at less than half the tunnel’s capacity is yet another reason why there is no need for the proposed expansion of Gatwick, nor Luton or City Airports for that matter. Gatwick is Big Enough Already.”

Peter Barclay, Chair of the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC) says, “Why does the government permit slots at London Airports for over 6 million people to fly from London to destinations already served by Eurostar destinations each year, which is far less climate polluting as a form of travel? A quarter of these (1.5 million) are passengers flying from Gatwick. Considering the Brussels – Cologne – Essen route (which is now also run by Eurostar) over 7.5 million passengers fly to the same destinations reached by more climate-friendly Eurostar in a similar overall journey time in 2023.” 

Peter continues, “Instead of permitting expansion of climate damaging flights the Secretary of State should require the Channel Tunnel and our UK train network to be fully utilised, ensuring trains replace short-haul flights and then manage the overall demand for flights to reduce within the UK’s carbon budget.” 

Jackie Macey, local climate campaigner in Surrey says, “Using the Channel Tunnel’s full capacity, putting train before plane and managing aviation demand as recommended by the UK’s Committee on Climate Change would remove the need for any airport expansion, not just in London Gatwick but at any UK airport. Instead of expanding airports which would jeopardise the credibility of UK carbon reduction plans the government must review the UK’s aviation and climate policy in light of the new Carbon Budget due to be released at the end of February and put in place measures to manage demand for aviation so its emissions reduce in line with the rest of the UK economy.”

Gatwick Airport has proposed to bring it’s northern ’emergency’ runway into full time use, with building that could start as early as 2025.

Gatwick’s own numbers estimate that this would grow passenger numbers from around 33 million in 2022 to 75-80 million in the 2030’s. That’s as big as Heathrow is today.

This begs another question.

Heathrow currently serves 80 million passengers a year with 4 operational terminals hosting a total of 115 gates.

Gatwick currently has 2 terminals, North and South hosting 65 total gates.

Was I a betting person, I’d be putting money on a us talking about an East or West terminal at Gatwick in the not too distant future.

Watch this space.

The towns and villages around gatwick will become a sponge for this more than doubling of pollution, noise, congestion and possibly flooding, given that the River Mole is currently routed underneath the airport.

The campaign is being driven by Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, Extinction Rebellion South East, Communities Against Gatwick Noise and Emissions and the Green Party.