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Residents: Our fear over Gatwick deal
Miranda Bryant22 Oct 2009
Residents living near Gatwick airport today spoke of their fears of being forced out of their homes after a £1.5 billion takeover was announced.
The new owner, Global Infrastructure Partners, which also owns London City Airport, is expected to undertake a huge expansion.
The company is promising passengers a better service and says it wants to end Gatwick's status as the “poor relation” of Heathrow. But people in the village of Ifield, near Crawley, are concerned it will mean a review of a legal agreement that prevents a second runway being built before 2019.
David Moody, 55, a consultant who has lived in his five-bedroom house, 500 yards from the existing runway, for 13 years, said: “If they built a second runway this road would be wiped out.
This is the worst place to build another runway because if you attract people from other parts of the country to the airport, the M25 is going to get even more congested.” Dennis Symes, 83, said: “I don't doubt the new owner will make it difficult for the people living here. The planes are annoying for retired people like me because I can't really get away. I've always lived in this area.
How can they be allowed to take over property that is yours?” BAA has approached many to “invest” in bonds to secure the value of their house in case they are forced to move to make room for a second runway.
The legal agreement, secured by West Sussex county council in 1979, is understood to be under scrutiny by the new owner but a council spokesman today insisted it was still solid.
He said: “The legal agreement negotiated by the county council preventing a second runway at Gatwick before 2019 will transfer to the new owners, so remains in force.”
A spokesman for the Department of Transport said: “The Government's policy on Gatwick remains unchanged from that set out in the 2003 Air Transport White Paper, which concluded that the case for a second runway was not as strong as for adding extra capacity at Stansted and Heathrow.
“The White Paper did recommend that land around Gatwick be safeguarded lest the case for a second runway change in future, but also made clear that the Government had no intention of overturning the planning agreement preventing development of a second runway before 2019.”
Other residents in the area take a different view, saying Gatwick's new owner would boost the local economy. One in three of Gatwick's 25,000 staff lives in Crawley and unemployment is below the national average. About a third of the town's population is employed by airlines and the airport.
Claire Burton, 24, a cabin crew member for Monarch who lives in Crawley, said: “Expanding Gatwick would be good for the area because it would bring in more money. BAA leaving is a good thing because it means it will have less of a monopoly on airports and it will be good for the community.”
Reader views (9)
if they are going to INVEST and expand then fair enough, the current owners have done jack to modernise and really improve the ifrastructure - ( sorry I forgot about the mile long bridge ) that " looks nice " apparently so I welcome anything that brings jobs to the area - its an airport, of course it will expand ! get in the real world
- James, horley - NOT crawley !, 23/10/2009 09:04
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Why should BAA get £1.5bn from the sale of the airport?. Should n't a portion of the sale price be paid to residents who suffer from aircraft noise from airport operations?. After all Gatwick is only able to operate by blasting noise into people's homes. No one asks would you like noise or not. In a sense the aircraft noise is trespassing into people's living rooms. And the airport are making use of people's properties for free. This sounds grossly unfair to me.
When someone buys an airline ticket they don't pay a penny in compensation to the residents who suffer from aircraft noise. Should n't there be public awareness.
In my particular case, I was never effected by aircraft noise up until a few years ago but both London City Airport and Heathrow have expanded. Why should the shareholders of these airports benefit from the airport, yet residents are left with the misery?. The local fields used to be a great place for a picnic. But the tranquility is all gone with all the jets flying around.
- W.L., London, 23/10/2009 02:33
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OK so first they go live close to an airport and then they want money because its noisy? No more Nu Labor style freeloading. Go live somewhere else then right.
- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London, 22/10/2009 20:57
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Selling Gatwick wholesale will not improve service. The residents of Kent and Sussex will travel through Gatwick by preference purely because it is 60 miles closer to home.
If the two terminals were franchised out to different companies so that people could choose airlines that departed from their prefered terminal, then there would be real competion for service, duty-free, flight delays, baggage losses, etc.
the same applies to Heathrow's five terminals. That these should belong to one company causes it to be a monopoly and hence no inducement to improve customer satisfaction.
- Graham, Reading, England, 22/10/2009 19:50
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Don't listen to the press bang on about people living next to the runway. It is an easy cop out for journalists to contact the Charlwood Residents Association and get their NIMBY and predictable response of no further expansion.
What you don't hear is that they all bought their homes at half price because since 1979 it has been clear the airport will expand.
The other glaring fact is that the people of Crawley and Horley have moved to these towns for employment not as some may assume to be in the cultral epicentre of the South East! We want to have employment and the airport provides it.
So 100,000 people in Crawley in modest homes on estates needing work versus 500 people in Charlwood living the Country Life at 50% discount, you decide....
- Roderick Bisset, Crawley, W Sussex, 22/10/2009 16:04
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Aviation is the fastest growing source of CO2 emissions. A failure to cut them will result in climate change catastrophe. It therefore makes no sense to build a second runway at Gatwick, as it would only serve to enable a significant rise in the number of flights.
The whole issue is not about alleged NIMBY-ism or medium-term profits - it's about global survival.
- Austen, London, 22/10/2009 13:44
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Anyone living near an airport should be ignored, do they really believe an airport will never expand.
Selfish moaning NIMBYS the lot of them, they bought near an airport as it was cheaper.
They remind me of people who buy near a red light district, which always has much cheaper housing, then start moaning about prostitutes lowering the tone.
- P Staker, London, 22/10/2009 11:46
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People such as the gentleman who commented about his house infuriate me. He has only been living there 13 years - Gatwick ghas been there for far longer than 13 years. The airport provides jobs for thousands of people in the Crawley area and beyond. If you don't want to be near an airport and the noise and the risks of expansion it's simple. Don't buy a house there!
- Alan, Crawley UK, 22/10/2009 09:20
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Having been to Crawley and vowed never to go back could they not simply use the town centre for the second runway? It would certainly produce less noise pollution than the screaming brats in their pushchairs being pushed by their 15 year old mothers down the high street.
- Bob, Cheam, 22/10/2009 08:50
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