To consider report CEx/49 of the Chief Executive.

 

As part of the Consultation Councillors at Full Council will be required to provide a clear direction to the Chief Executive on each of the responses to the Consultation questions.

 

The Chief Executive will then submit the Council’s response to the consultation as directed by the Full Council, before the consultation closes on 10 January 2019.

 

The Full Council considered report CEx/49 of the Chief Executive. The Chief Executive introduced the report as follows:

 

Thank you Mr Mayor and good evening Councillors.

 

The report in front of you outlines Gatwick Airport’s proposals for ongoing development and growth over the next ten to fifteen years. This is captured in their draft masterplan currently out for consultation which ends on 10 January 2019.

In essence the draft Masterplan explains and tests a number of scenarios as to how Gatwick Airport,  which currently handles just under 46 million passengers per annum, can expand to meet growing demand for air travel.

 

The first is to Intensifying the use of the current main runway. And increasing capacity to circa 60 million passengers per annum and doubling the cargo throughput. The second scenario is Bringing the stand-by runway into regular use once a 40 year legal agreement with WSCC falls away in August 2019 plus the lifting of a restrictive planning agreement. This would accommodate growth of up to 70 million passengers per annum and tripling of cargo throughput compared to the current day.  The third process is to continue safeguarding land to the immediate south of the current runway for an additional new runway in the future.

 

It is worth explaining that the draft masterplan is set out to test the appetite of the various scenarios and as such does not have the very detailed assessments, data and studies to support it. Whilst clearly some synopsis work has taken place to provide an indication of some of the implications, the very detailed impacts and analysis work will be undertaken when a clear steer and direction is agreed. So the consultation process is structured around 11 key questions their proposals and their consultation document which we have had an opportunity to look at them.

 

I am seeking your views and agreement in how we submit our Council response. To do this we are proposing to divide our response into two clear sections. The first would  form a technical response to questions 3- 11, pages 42-48 (in your papers) including our position on the future safeguarding of land which remains the same as our previous formal position taken in 2015  which is to strongly oppose this. The second is the Council’s overall view on whether it supports or opposes the proposals as outlined in the draft Masterplan, given the background provided in our question 2 draft response (pages 33-41 of your papers). Your responses to these questions and to the recommendations, along with the general debate will provide me with a clear steer of the council’s response to submit in the New Year.

 

The Mayor then invited the Leader of the Council, then moved the report.

 

Councillor Lamb:

Members, the report that you have before you has been produced with much forethought and care. My purpose in bringing this report forward in this format is to ensure that it no ways implies the outcome of this meeting. Both the Members of Labour Group and the Conservative Group, I understand, have a free vote and consequently every member will be making their own their mind up themselves in the Chamber tonight. The report itself has been prepared by the council’s planners, they have done so so using their professional expertise to respond to each of the technical points of the consultation. What we are essentially here tonight to do is to resolve the overriding question for the local public: do we support the proposals to bring in the use of the standby runway and to show the arguments we have here tonight, we are being recorded so that a verbatim account can be supplied as part of the argument and evidence to our response.

 

I, myself, find myself somewhat split on this issue. I have no problem with the airport itself, I do not necessarily believe there is any issue with noise or particular noise bearing in mind that the standby is further away than the current runway, albeit noting the earlier comments made in relation to go-arounds or any increase of flights flying over the town which I believe has slightly increased over time.

 

My biggest concern really relates to the issue of infrastructure and, while we certainly benefit from the jobs that Gatwick supplies and with automation we need to provide additional jobs in the future if we’re to keep people employed and in the standards in which they’ve lived so far, there is a serious question over the absence of infrastructure in the Masterplan so far. It is hard to conceive how you can increase your passenger numbers by 50% without that having a serious impact on local infrastructure. It is very hard to see how the railway can cope, even with the changes currently being introduced which is to deal with the existing passenger growth and much the same with the road structure. This raises real questions as to the viability of certainly enabling an increase in capacity.

 

At the same time, I find myself split in to whether or not it is right to reject a proposal that would guarantee future employment, in these very uncertain times. Very serious questions remain and I believe that regardless of the outcome of this meeting, we need further assurances as to how that infrastructure would be provided. Certainly it does not bear credulity to argue that Gatwick should commit to something along the lines of what they committed to for the second runway, given that the level of infrastructure which would have been required in bringing forward the second runway would have been so very much more expensive, this appears to be a relatively low cost measure that the airport can introduce while significantly improving their revenue.

 

As a Council we are of course not ruling on this application at the end of the day but we will have a role in the DCO process that follows and the view of the members will certainly feed into that. All the three local authorities, certainly those impacted, will have a role which in that process.

So the decision we take here is important and I will make up my mind based on the arguments put forward in the chamber tonight.

 

I formally move the report.

 

The report was then formally seconded by Councillor P. Smith who reserved his right to speak later in the debate. The Mayor then opened the debate up to the floor. The Mayor invited each Councillor individually, (in the order listed below) to express their view on the report, which is detailed below:

 

Councillor Thomas:

OK It was initially unclear to me whether the three scenarios/proposals are mutually exclusive and have come to the conclusion that they are not – simply that 1 and 2 probably come before 3. This being the case, what the Masterplan seems to suggest is an expansion of flights from @47 million people per year, currently to 57 under option 1, rising to 68-70 million with use of the standby runaway and then 95 million with the second/third runway in the currently safeguarded land. Frankly, this 95 million seems something of an underestimate given that it is a new runway only apparently adding and extra 25 million – nearer 50 million feels more likely bring the total to 120 million – well over double the present number – with all that that means in terms of noise (even if engines are somewhat quieter) go –arounds around Crawley, air quality concerns from gases emitted by aircraft and local traffic serving Gatwick, carbon dioxide emissions and pressure on the local environment in demands of housing, infrastructure etc etc.

 

You just have to travel to Horsham from Crawley to appreciate the diminishing gap between our towns and to see the massive expansion of Horsham westwards and soon northwards without any airport expansion. Even currently, land immediately south of Crawley and a designated area of natural beauty is being built upon.

 

Much may be said about the potential economic benefits of airport expansion especially for the present and future generations of Crawley and elsewhere. However pp 2.23 points out the limited detail in the Masterplan in terms of types of jobs and where they would be located and paragraph 5.1 questions GAL’s commitment to improving social mobility in Crawley including no mention of Crawley College. Currently, higher skilled employees at Gatwick tend not to live in Crawley.

 

Future generations, whilst perhaps benefitting in terms of some sort of employment will also have to cope with increases in aircraft noise in the north of Crawley paragraphs 2.6 paragraph 2.7 refers to the importance of recent research showing the health effects of exposure to noise, e.g. increased risk of dementia. As time goes on, what were considered to be ‘safe’ levels of air pollutants (particularly from motor vehicles) are thrown into doubt. Future generations will also have to accept increasing urbanisation and urban sprawl in an area currently blessed by beautiful landscape and designated AONB etc.

 

Paragraph 2.20 also refers to increased carbon dioxide emissions which are a significant concern for the council’s commitment to zero carbon by 2030 and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest recommendations on carbon reduction targets. How can we claim to be doing our best to ‘do our bit’ to reduce global warming – such a threat to future generations worldwide – when we sanction/approve of the ongoing expansion of Gatwick Airport beyond 2030?

 

‘Making Best Use of Existing Runways.’ This is a government policy objective which is made much of in the Master Plan. Gatwick interpret it to mean the current and emergency runway. Clearly it does not refer to the land currently safeguarded south of the airport where there is no existing runway and which is adjacent to the neighbourhoods of Forgewood, Langley Green and Ifield. Also existing runways could just as easily be interpreted as existing runaways elsewhere in UK such as Stansted, Manchester, Glasgow Birmingham etc the further development of which could go some way to spread economic prosperity more evenly across our ‘United Kingdom’ and avoid overconcentration in the South East.

 

Gatwick Airport Limited make much use of the term ‘in the National Interest’ particularly when referring to preserving the Safeguarding Zone. I am always suspicious when politicians refer – often glibly and perhaps as a last resort, refer to their policy as in the National Interest – and my suspicions are even further raised when this argument – or perhaps I should say assertion - is used by a commercial organization – in this case GAL. One could argue that it is in the National Interest to focus any new runway development away from SE England – or that any such development should be severely constrained for local and global environmental reasons.

 

Councillor McCarthy:

Thank you Mr Mayor. First of all before we get into this I think the Recommendation B on page 26 is misleading and should review the statement “by making best use of the existing runways in line with Government policy”. The spirit of the government policy is to ensure airports use any unused capacity i.e. existing runways that are not utilised at 100 % of the time, rather than not bringing emergency runways into an active role.  I think the way this question is worded suggests an endorsement from the Government that is clearly not the case. When this statement was originally made, during the Davis Commission investigation for an additional runway in the South East, it went on to say that using unused capacity at various locations in the UK would achieved a higher capacity than adding an additional runway at a single location.

 

That policy aside, there’s obviously an expectation for organic growth and passenger numbers at the airport.  Unfortunately using an emergency runway would give a boost to passenger numbers at the airport which far exceeds the capacity of infrastructure. A 30% increase in passenger numbers equates to 100,000 passengers per day travelling to and from Gatwick. This amounts to significant numbers on road and rail which are already at capacity, without significant investment in infrastructure I cannot see a scenario which doesn’t result in gridlock around the town.

 

Even with significant investment in infrastructure one of the primary arguments against Gatwick led by the Davis Commission was the limited accessibility of Gatwick with its North/South access, whereas Heathrow having access from all directions is already more accessible to a high percentage of the population.

 

Job opportunities – 20,000 jobs with a town of one main employer can only be inward migration or additional commuting.  Inward migration, where are the houses?  Of the 20,000 jobs, 8,000 are expected to work at the airport and thus would add to the daily commute. Having been to ‘Manor Royal Matters’ conference recently there are already skills shortages in the area and a lack of people to fill these vacancies. Whilst I cannot argue that the airport has brought prosperity to the town, this prosperity has come at a cost to the environment. We are all being told that aircraft are getting quieter and the new engines have far lower emissions, however the main cause of pollution in the town is daily use of transportation and this is set to increase dramatically.  I also think that the economic diversity, economic diversification is a key to long term security of the town rather than putting all eggs into one basket. Land reserves for a potential seconded or third runaway would be better utilised for Manor Royal Business District as well as for finding social housing.  Thank you.

 

Councillor Sudan:      

Thank you Mr Mayor. The economy in the South East and London including Crawley, is being incredibly overheated and when you have got an overheated economy, you get problems.  As Councillor McCarthy said, more jobs puts more pressure not only on the infrastructure, as also mentioned by Councillor Thomas but also on the housing market we have got available.  We have already got a serious shortage of housing in this town.  We are the sixth maybe even the fourth now most expensive place to live in the UK and that is down to that shortage and that’s economics.  You have a shortage and prices go up.  People who are born in this town, who want to live in this town and see their children live in this town are being priced out of this town because of the over inflated economy that we’ve got here. Jobs do bring benefits that is true to the people who have those jobs I think we have got a duty to think about the future.  If we put all our eggs in one basket, we are then vulnerable to the comings and goings and ups and downs and the fortunes of Gatwick Airport Ltd which is a business which will be having its fortunes and its misfortunes and those jobs will be having the fortunes and misfortunes along with it.  We don’t want to be a town that’s only dependent on one employer and mainly on one employer and those associated employers but associated with the Airport we need a little bit more variation than that.   There are lots of arguments, environmental arguments and infrastructure arguments but even if those arguments weren’t there I would be against this proposal because of the single reason that we don’t need any more inflated economy in Crawley or the South-East.  Thank you Mr Mayor.

 

Councillor Lanzer:

Thank you Mr Mayor.  I would just thank the officers for their work in carrying out the technical response as clearly a good deal of effort has gone in this. It is very impressive.  I would like to start by acknowledging the beneficial effect the current owners have had on Gatwick Airport since they took it over. Prior to the new owners coming along we didn’t have real competition between Heathrow and Gatwick and that changed.  You can see the effect of that in terms of the investment within the airport and it’s been a catalogue of highly intelligent and creative investment where you consider it’s limited to a single runway.  It’s been made more family friendly.  There are questions of space in terms of check-in, arrival and security and check-in areas so I think their investments have paid off and you know this. Being any other location which had space then we would be minded to welcome much of what is in the masterplan. But we have to deal with the location that we are actually in and Crawley in many aspects of policy suffers from a lack of space to fit and act strategically in terms of housing provision and other areas of policy as well.  This is assisted by the local government structure under which we operate.  Yes there is the duty to cooperate in terms of housing but that is just influence over adjoining areas rather than the power, the absolute power to do something.   And that brings me to the safeguarding part of what we’re debating this evening. It occurs to me that whatever happens whether it be the past operation of a single runway, or bringing into operation the emergency runway for departures only or the ultimate creation of some other additional capacity. 

 

We should at least be given a bit of space back within Crawley Borough to assist with being able to act strategically whatever that space might be available to be used for.  It is not just a question of taking space back to preclude a further runway which I think we should as a source of environmental consequences and infrastructure consequences from that, but it is compensation for the residents of Crawley so that we can assist our people employing industry, business and indirectly housing as well I make a very strong case of that.  In terms of the detail of our response its good I think I don’t see enough in the draft masterplan which implies that the proposals on the table, strike the right balance between the economy and the environment.  And that’s particularly the case in terms of infrastructure; we do know now that we struggle in terms of highway capacity, housing and also environmental impact. The possibility of bringing into use the emergency runway for departures only does depend on circling or the separation to make that situation operable.  My instincts would be to protect this or to go for more than the minimum so you’ve got some contingency. I wonder if the space exists for that?

 

Reflecting back to the debate in 2002-3 to have fully operational a second wide space parallel runway at that time required that a separation of one km now I know the separation is not quite the same as the proposal is in reverse.  I very much buy in to the economic argument that we do need a more diverse economy.  If any of these proposals go ahead on current evidence I am not convinced that we could cope with the infrastructure impact although I will observe them.  Going into the future,  some increase in employment does not necessarily indicate an increase in housing provision local to us increasingly we will see people working geographically remote from their employers so that therefore would be offset to some extent.  But on balance I don’t think the case is made for bringing the emergency runway to full operation but I believe the case is very strongly made that we should lose the safeguarding of our land.

 

Councillor B Smith:

Thank you Mr Mayor.  Obviously it has been said, actually mostly all of what I was going to say has been said. There is not enough detail in the masterplan to actually focus entirely on what will happen to Crawley if these proposals go ahead.   As you all know I have always had serious concerns about increased use, especially to the use now of the second runway.  It will be, I believe, devastating to the infrastructure of the town and particularly driving around, where I live, Langley Green. Gatwick Airport is actually in my division not County Council and Borough but I understand that the travel to work is at the moment is around 20,000 plus daily and I just wondered what the figures are going to be with the introduction of these extra increases? 

 

We also know that employment generally is low paid and low skilled and is not something that we are in desperate need of and we all assume there are higher graded and skilled jobs but they don’t usually come to Crawley, they tend to taken by people who live outside the town and again travel into Crawley.  There’s never much discussion about sleep deprivation but I seriously believe that sleep deprivation does not just affect our children but all of us on a day-to-day basis.  We’ve become used to the noise but it still is there, it’s constantly there.  Particularly in the summer if you live in Langley Green and want to have your windows open on a summers evening you can hear the airport noise much more.  And of course, in Langley Green again we still suffer many, many nights and evenings of the awful kerosene smell that pervades the area.  We are already gridlocked in the mornings and the evenings with the traffic on the roads and I am at a loss to know how this can be improved with the situation as it is.  If the airport was to consider changing the structure of the roads surrounding the airport it would mean again, devastation to the neighbourhoods that side of the town. 

 

There is mention again of quieter planes but we have been hearing this for years and I have never yet heard a quiet plane. They are noisy things as far as I am concerned but it is always bought up there will be quieter planes, but when will this be?  It’s ironic that all the other regional airports have runway capacity and yet, there has been too many planes end up getting redirected to Gatwick.  Where that means then that passengers will be travelling through Gatwick and to the Crawley area and that again just brings extra commuters.  Some of the other regional airports, it could be very beneficial to them for that to happen.  The concerns that I had for many years are still exactly the same and I don’t see that this proposal now makes any difference.  I have said it dozens and dozens of times, I do support Gatwick, I realise it is a benefit to the town and we as a town, benefit greatly from it, but it cannot be at any price.  I think this could be a price to pay too far.   

 

Councillor Stone:

Thank you Mr Mayor.  I must say I support all being said by Councillors Kevan McCarthy, Brenda Smith, Geraint Thomas, and Karen Sudan.  The use of the standby runway is a second runway by the back door.  My concern is that this will increase noise and emissions.  We have been told when Gatwick Airport Limited lobbied us that the runway and would give them 30% extra passengers would not increase noise or emissions which is basically ridiculous.  We have had complaints from all over Sussex and Kent of increased noise since the change in the way the aircraft come into land and in areas that were previously unaffected by aircraft noise.  Now they do which will be worse with the 30% extra capacity.  We are told that we cannot build on land safeguarded for a second runway even though Gatwick Airport say they are not considering a second runway at this time.  The 30% capacity would stretch the already inadequate infrastructure.  We have talked about the infrastructure already and I think that’s one of the problems our small roads around Crawley are not coping they are already stretched.  The infrastructure within the airport, the pickup and drop-off is a nightmare.  I understand also the amount of freight would double.  The freight village is full now.  Where would it go outside the airport perimeter?  It would add to congestion and extra issues.   I will be voting against this proposal.  Thank you.

 

Councillor Sharma:

Thank you Mr Mayor.  Thank you my other members here for presenting the facts and figures and working out who would be affected.  In my other job as a youth worker I have the opportunity to talk to young people. Young people who live in Crawley and it just so happens I was talking to some people and they were very concerned and one of the young men who put it very simply and very clearly and he asked me, Raj, he said, I was born in Crawley, grew up in Crawley, educated in Crawley, all my family and friends live in Crawley, I love Crawley and everything about it.  I left school at 16, took an apprenticeship, and after three years got a good job I am earning a decent amount of money, I have a girlfriend, I am living in rented accommodation and I have a plan in the next 8 years I will be Regional Manager for the firm I am working for.  I will raise my family in Crawley, near all my friends and all the people I love.  Yet I am completely out of the housing market in Crawley.  Already the housing crisis, to get a place is very, very hard.  So the way I see it, if this plan was allowed to take place I could not help people living in Crawley and my family, my future lives, help me.  I think it was simple what he said, help me, how can I be part of the community that I live in.  He wasn’t alone, I think the young people I was talking to, this is what we are all about. Yes we like the idea of more and different jobs at the airport, but the money that we are earning, the money people are earning is not enough for us to be able to buy a house.  We want to have the quality that my parents, my grandparents had and we do not have that and we simply ask that our views be heard, the real voice of the young people, the real voice of what we are saying and talk about that and give me an answer that is favourable to the young people of Crawley because we are the future

 

Councillor R Burgess:

Thank you Councillor.  One of the things that we as Councillors have responsibility for is to try and make sure that the quality of life of the residents of Crawley, is the best it can be.  I know that sounds a bit highbrow, but I genuinely believe we are here to try and serve the best interests of the people of Crawley and so I am very pleased that we have been given the opportunity to respond to the Gatwick Airport draft masterplan this evening. However there are some concerns.  First of all there is not enough detail in the consultation process.  One stage that came to mind reading I can’t remember exactly which paragraph it’s on, is that there is no plans to build a second runway at present.  There means that somewhere in somebody’s mind there are plans to build a second runway.  Also, I attended one of the consultation presentations and I was not at all convinced by the many responses given by the people from Gatwick Airport Ltd who were there.  There are three areas that keep coming up.  One is noise, we are told quieter aircraft – when?  We are told there is an increase in go arounds, not only in Langley Green but also in Three Bridges at least 2 a week regularly over Three Bridges cricket ground.  I see them, most of them have got a red nose on them by the way.  

 

The second point is the current infrastructure in Crawley and around about Crawley leading up to the airport.  There is already a lot of congestion not only on the roads but also on the trains.  If we have an increase in runway capacity there’s going to be more passengers travelling to the airport.  Presumably that means there will be some passengers travelling by train or by road, very few of them will be walking and even fewer will be cycling but there will be more passengers, therefore there will be more emissions and this is particularly concerning to me.  We are told by David, sorry forget his name for a moment, by David Attenborough, that when he talks about emissions in the next few years, the world as we know it, won’t be here anyway.   I know I am getting involved and I probably won’t be around to see it but many people who live in and work in Crawley will be around and I don’t want that sort of world given to them.  I think that the proposal to expand to increase the use of the emergency runway is a bad idea and I will be voting against.  Thank you.

 

Councillor Tim Lunnon:

I think there might be a slight change of opinion here.  I will start going through, addressing some of the negative points that people have brought up and my view on it and I’ll move on to what I think are the more positive points.  I would like to start with noise and I understand it must be frustrating and annoying and be detrimental to those people living in especially Langley Green and Ifield to suffer from aircraft noise.  Of course, Crawley has been an airport town since it was a town nobody moved in to Langley Green and Ifield or indeed Crawley without knowing there was an airport situated immediately adjacent to this.  One of the things you will hear when you move to a town immediately next to an airport is of course aircraft.  So my sympathy is limited to a degree because you must have known there was an airport there when you moved there, and of course aircraft noise is one of the obvious by-products of moving next to an airport. Transport infrastructure we talked a lot about an increase in transport infrastructure but of course over about 90 to 95% of people going to London Gatwick Airport will of course be going on to London so have not entered in to the Crawley infrastructure to get to Gatwick Airport, they will get to the railway station or come down the A23 to get to car parks there so they won’t actually be having an impact on our transport infrastructure.  Of course, if we move on to safeguarding land, if you release say part of the safeguarded land for business use or houses, that will naturally increase the number of car movements coming into the town and into that area. That would be actually be a much greater impact to the surrounding area of the town than if you just keep that land safeguarded, as you would have nothing there.  So actually keeping that land safeguarded is probably the best prospect for Crawley because we won’t see an increase in impact on our infrastructure.  We talk also about the geographic equality some people are doing, we should develop the runways at other airports like Glasgow or Edinburgh but of course these airports are vast and have already got enough space for aircraft to come in and the passengers have spoken they don’t want to go to these towns they want to come to Gatwick they want to come to Crawley.  So why are we saying to them that they have made those choices, they are wrong. 

 

The environment is actually a legitimate concern, I’ve my own concerns about what would happen to the environment but of course, by 2040 all cars will have to have electric engines, so they will have less impact.  Aircraft are getting cleaner all the time so we have to balance out the environmental impact and of course I am sure we are all making our own measures if we are opposed to the impact of the planes so not to take any plane journeys ourselves. After all Councillors here will not be making plane journeys, as I am presuming they will be making their own personal efforts to reduce the amount of aircraft emissions.  The most toxic argument I’ve heard is that Crawley has too many jobs so therefore we can’t accept any more.  So the obvious logic for this is that any planning application that comes forward now that has a job impact if you say that Gatwick can’t be accepted because we’ve already got enough jobs, then any planning application that comes forward that has an increase in jobs, we have to object because this Council has already got enough jobs.  I think that that message is clearly not sensible and is not going to be conducive to those businesses who want to develop in Crawley but it is something to consider.  Of course the upside of having more jobs in a town, by basic economic argument, is there is a demand on workforce and job supply means of course pay will go up for Crawley residents and I’m sure most Councillors will be happy to support decent pay for Crawley residents. 

 

Public support is another issue I thought I would touch on quickly.  When we had the last second runway debate on Gatwick I and no doubt others also as well, were contacted regularly by residents getting in touch with us for an opinion one way or another.  I have to say at this time I have received zero correspondence from residents about this issue suggesting maybe no outrage over the second runway, as last time the majority of residents who did get in touch were against the second runway maybe this recommendation carries more support.

 

I come onto my last point very quickly because time is running out. The main reason I want to support is that I am actually proud to live in a town that has the second biggest airport in the United Kingdom.  We could rightfully say that this town has the second most visitors anywhere in the country after London because most people come through here. I want to say to them I am proud that they come to our town and continue their journey I want to see them continue to come to our town and more people come to our town and continue their ongoing journey and I also want to say to businesses that we support them when they want to grow and rejoice. That was also our motto for the town 70 years ago because for some of us it’s still our motto now for our town.  Thank you.

 

Councillor Burrett:

Thank you Mr Mayor.  As many members of this Chamber will know I’ve always been opposed to a full second runway, I voted against it when it was debated in this Chamber in 2003 and in January 2015. Like Councillor Smith said, I support Gatwick and the area to the north of the town and I’m certainly not opposed to the airport. I think it’s done a great deal to Crawley but not at any price and I think that’s the balance we need to strike.  Certainly the effects of Gatwick Airport deeply affects,       the area I represent Pound Hill North and the new neighbourhood Forge Wood which obviously is very close to Gatwick.  The proposal we see in the current master plan is a reduction of what was put forward at the time of the Davis Commission, and obviously it’s about the new proposal.

 

I continue to have concerns about the environmental impact, the noise, the air quality and carbon emissions. There are particular references in paragraph 2.5 and 2.7 about the northern part of my Ward, the fact that the use of the standby runway will increase the number of over flights experienced by residents along the Balcombe Road in Tinsley Green and Fernhill , because by using this standby runway, for departures an increase in arrivals can be achieved on the main runway and obviously that’s a concern and I do have to say that a number of members of the community have referenced the increase in go arounds in recent years.  I have to say in the last two years, I have probably received more complaints about the number of go-arounds from residents in Pound Hill North than probably the last 20 years put together and it’s interesting that Councillor Burgess said over the go-arounds planes have red noses that’s the same comment I am getting from my residents as well about one particular area where that seems to be a particular issue.  It is clear to me from the Masterplan that there are certain levels of mitigation certainly we are told in the future there will be quieter aircraft and the air quality improvements will arrive to a standstill level in terms of the environmental effect. 

 

But not all the answers are in the document.  It is very thin on the infrastructure planning which I have to say is my greatest concern here.  There is little about housing, school provision, medical services etc.  In terms of employment we are told this will create 20,000 jobs, 8,000 of which will be on the airport.  Of course that means another 12,000 will be outside the airport. I’ve asked the question several times where those 12,000 jobs will go and where would the land to be able to provide those jobs be, and I’ve never received a satisfactory answer and of course even if you take those 20,000 jobs if that work is in Crawley they will need houses, they will need schools to send their children to and they will need medical facilities, they will need shop facilities, they will have cars to get them from A to B.  Clearly a ground surface access is a huge issue here and again I have to say that’s not fully addressed in the document to my satisfaction. On the one hand we’re told that a lot of people who will work and stay at the airport will live some distance away in Croydon and Brighton and they will travel in, but of course if that’s going to happen that means an increase in surface access from that longer distance, an increase in pollution, an increase in vehicular movement, etc. they won’t all be using public transport.  So really, I suppose that the conclusion is that, whilst I support incremental expansion at Gatwick on the single runway model as detailed. I don’t know if I can be sure of the proposed master plan and the negative effects of that proposal in this case without all the details needed provided so on that basis I am proposing against the plan on the grounds of the unsure environmental and infrastructure concerns, the effect that that would have on my residents.

 

Councillor Mullins:

Thank you very much.  I am going to take the position similar to yours, Tim, really in that I even cast my mind back to when we moved to Crawley and the town was stuffed with engineering companies and there used to be masses of apprenticeships for young people, this was a skilled, engineering skilled town.  As time went on, we lost our engineering industry and we came to rely heavily on the airport for jobs.  And it is true many of them are not skilled, they are certainly not skilled like the old engineering jobs that we used to have.   We lost APV, MEL, Duracell, three companies you can think of that no longer exist in Crawley and along with that the training for our young people that left school and apprenticeships.   I regret that happening and I don’t want to see young people going into unskilled, semi-skilled jobs and people are talking much about what young people in Crawley could afford.  Well of course they can afford very little on very unskilled jobs, that’s just the reality of it and if people were still allowed to develop their skills and their full potential in the workplace then they would earn more.  We have a housing problem and I am the first person to recognise that but we had a housing problem then, we had a housing problem regardless of whether the airport plans go forward or not and Crawley needs desperately to burst its boundaries.  We need to become a bigger town and we need to work outside of the town and buy and/or own land outside of the town and at some time in the future the Government has got to recognise that our town now is too small for its needs here in the South East. 

 

I regret that they closed the railway link over to East Grinstead.  It now seems the most stupid thing to have done.  We have got so many very poor roads between Crawley and East Grinstead where they could be travelling here by train over to here for the jobs in Crawley. So, yes, we will be travelling to work to the area in the way many people travel into Brighton or some other major areas or cities for work and that won’t stop. So actually refusing this, or not having this at all, won’t change very much in with those things. Geraint talked about the environment and I have got empathy with him on that but whatever emissions come out of the airport, if you move them, that extra movement, those extra facilities go to Luton or Stansted, that is still going into the atmosphere, that won’t change that, that pollutant will still be there whether you put it in Gatwick, if you put it in Luton or Stansted.  Well what I am worried about is that Luton and Stansted are desperate to go forward into development.  They are desperate to have more runways and they could be direct competition for Gatwick.  I didn’t want the privatisation of the Airports so I think we were better off where the airports were under the Airports Authority but the Tories decided to privatise the airports and that’s what they’ve done and you get the result of it, so instead of working together in unison, we compete with another.  So if we’ve got to compete with one another then I will compete.  I want to make sure that Gatwick is successful even as I referred to when we lost our engineering industry, this Council survived okay because we had the airport then.  The airport has been vital to Crawley’s history all the way through and right into the future but we cannot pretend to ourselves that the airport can’t go forward.  That is very naïve thinking and the airport does need to go forward, it does need to develop and I would love to see more jobs here but I want to find out of those 20,000 how many of those are skilled jobs and I want to find out how we can work with the Airport Authority to bring skills to our young people.  I want to be asking the Airport management that our young people should be getting apprenticeships at the airport so they don’t need to come out of school and become fork lift truck drivers that people do now but they come out and they can get mechanical engineering work at the airport.  I would much sooner that we put the position that we will negotiate with the Airports Authority to see what we can get out of this for Crawley because if we oppose this and it goes ahead we will lose out because they will do what they want.  We should be in there, we should be arguing with them.

 

Councillor Guidera:

Thank you Mr Mayor.  Since the 1950’s the passenger fuel efficiency has improved by 80% that is a huge improvement. Obviously CO² emission reductions are focussed now with our Government or previous Governments talking about noise.  I once had the pleasure of working at Astral Towers when I don’t know if you remember, when there was a Concorde stuck at Gatwick and it had to wait for the engineers to come and nobody else could work on Concorde aircraft and I actually witnessed it taking off and I didn’t witness it at first I was busy at work and I felt the entire Astral Towers building shake as it started to rumble up the runway.  Obviously Concorde sadly no longer flies is a tragedy but we are in a better place now certainly Heathrow is in a better place now than when they had Concorde regularly flying over their roofs.  They will continue to improve and you know I am sure Tim, more than any of us that look into future fuel, fossil fuels are running out and they are not viable forever and that energy efficiency is constantly being improved upon.  We recently approved the only Boeing maintenance hangar in Europe in this room to serve the 787’s and 737 aircrafts.  They picked Gatwick, they told us they were looking at other options but they decided to go with Gatwick Airport.  So I am a little concerned that we may be sending very mixed messages out to them.  Come and invest a bit more aircraft maintenance hangar here but please don’t fly here very often.  I agree with Councillor Mullins we need to get a lot out of this.  Housing, the infrastructure and dare I say it, hospital, you know there is going to be more flights, there’s going to be incidents. I doubt we will get a new hospital and I know Laura was going to stop it from closing. But we can all agree that it would be great to have a better hospital in this area with such a busy and increasingly busy International Airport.  It’s a difficult one for me because I think where we are at the moment I don’t support or not support it but I will say this, those of us who grew up here and all of us will surely have knocked on the door of an older person who will have said I remember when all this was fields and lastly, I think you’ve done all this again, but the town motto is ‘We grow and we rejoice’.  I think we should.  You can grow without breaking things.  I think we just need to grow carefully that’s all.

 

Councillor Rana:

Thank you Mr Mayor.  I was in two minds about the Gatwick proposal.  I was talking to my son a few days ago and I asked him what he thought. He was born and brought up in Crawley and he was totally against the second runway through the use of the emergency runway, because it’s going to be more pollution in the town, the NHS, the schools are already overcrowded and it’s going to be more people coming to live in the town.  Those who go to Gatwick Airport would bring money in to the town. Also freight businesses, they will be of benefit but it will be at the cost for the Crawley residents.  The Crawley residents they don’t really want a second runway because they know, I mean there is so much traffic now coming that way, all the time especially at 9 o’clock in the morning, 6, 7, 8, 9 like it’s almost like it’s gridlock there. Even in the evening at 7pm there is always the same loud planes, so I don’t think Crawley is very happy with that. I think, like I am probably against it now but I wasn’t at first and not only that but because he gave me the advice to always listen to the town, the people that you represent and that’s true for all of us. We represent Crawley we should listen to the people what they want and I think the people of Crawley don’t want a second runway or even enhancing the emergency runway and another clear advice he gave me don’t be like Theresa May, she doesn’t listen, she does what she pleases.  Thank you.

 

Councillor B. Burgess:

Thank you Mr Mayor.  I will be very brief. Everyone has said pretty much what I wanted to say and I particularly agree with Councillor Thomas in what he said.  But I have to take umbrage with the objection about living next to an airport because take that argument.  Well in the 1950’s people moved into Crawley lived next to a road, they didn’t ask the road to get jam packed with emissions fuelled vehicles.  So you can’t always say you chose to live next to an airport, the airport was there and that’s it but what I am concerned about more than anything is this, in paragraph 2.20 on page 36 it sets out very clearly the problem with emissions and how they would grow and develop and yet, yes we do need fuel that will be sustainable aviation fuels but no-one has developed in harmony I mean someone has just developed this aircraft or a flying machine but that’s many years down the road, maybe we should put first a motion forward putting pressure on the airline companies to develop sustainable aviation, I don’t know who but the thing is that it’s not being done and we haven’t got time, it has to be done now, you know, this is it folks, last chance saloon, we have to do something now to cut back emissions and poisons in this area and if we move it to other areas, quite rightly, it will go okay can’t stop Luton and Stansted but if all the airports, everybody looked at this idea of sustainability and cut back emissions it is not a good idea for Crawley.  We’ve looked at the infrastructure, we’ve looked at emissions, we’ve looked at housing problems, it doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. So I am sorry but with all the arguments going on, I am minded to go against the proposal.  Thank you.

 

Councillor Cheshire:

Thank you Mr Mayor.  Thank you to all who have spoken before me so I will try not to repeat a lot of the things many of which I thoroughly agree with.  I think everyone in this Chamber has probably flown in recent times and is grateful for having the opportunity down the road to easily get a plane and fly off to wherever, and we don’t want to be hypocritical about this because somebody has to live near an airport, somebody has to take the downsides and as I thought this through I tried to keep that in mind and be glad about it.  I am also grateful for the benefits that were brought to Crawley by Gatwick Airport. Its existence in our Borough is a major reason for the economics that started the new town over the past decades.  Far, far more success rate economically than many of those new towns but I believe that very success is in danger of reaching a tipping point as far as Crawley is concerned. It’s at the point where it’s bringing downsides that we are already experiencing. The high cost of land and demand for Council housing, the lack of infrastructure, the things that other speakers have already described. They are only going to get worse if more investment goes into the airport and it expands in any of the ways proposed.  I too am cynical about the national interest of it.  The whole picture of transport to me is already South-East centric. The investment in HS2 would be better spent in improving the connectivity between towns and cities in the Midlands and the North and I feel the same about airport investment.  I think we would be far better to invest in regional airports and perhaps in some way towards rebalancing our lopsided economy and make us in the end more successful.  I thought it from all angles and I think that the best one is by saying that under these proposals I can see that Crawley will take most of the pain and very little gain and therefore I oppose.

 

Councillor Quinn:

Thank you Mr Mayor. I will be very, very, very short.  I am not going to do a speech.  To do a speech with a good beginning and good ending they would sit very close together so I am going to do that.  We have got a lot of assets in Crawley so it’s about Gatwick Airport, actually the second runway.  So has been spilt down the middle and it has been for many, many years. We were told some years ago that having second runway would mean knocking down houses, knocking down Charlwood and all over the local area would be knocked down.  It’s not happening it’s only the emergency runway.  We have spent hours here tonight it’s been a great debate, everybody has a great input but it’s down to the Secretary of State and he will make his mind up. Thank you.

 

Councillor P. Smith:

Thank you. I would like as well to thank the officers led by Sallie Lappage, who is here this evening, who have to produce such a clear report in only 25 pages I think its outstanding work.  I’ve spoken to some of my residents about the airport and what they think about it. Not many people here tonight have mentioned residents. It’s instructive to talk to them but of course as an Ifield member I have had quite a few people in the north who have made it very clear to me since I was first elected 7 years ago what they think about the airport and the prospect of a new boundary fence at the bottom of their garden.  But equally there are plenty of people in Ifield who want to see the airport expansion for all the obvious reasons, there are jobs for themselves and for their children and their children’s children and of course, to increase prosperity in town.  The airport provides something like a third of the employment in the town so we already do have a diverse economy and it’s important to keep it that way, and we all want to live in a prosperous town that we’ve built, and even those who doesn’t work anymore realise that.

 

I won’t repeat the aspects that already spoken about, but it seems to me there are two key issues we have here.  Infrastructure – you come to Ifield with me in the morning or evening and you will see it is already log jammed down the Rusper Road with people rat-running into our town.  And I think it’s a sign of prosperity people coming to work in the town but my residents have suffered long enough with that, it’s time we had a western relief road and its time Gatwick put their hand in their pocket and help fork up for all of it.  Similarly, the employment and skills, there’s high technology jobs at the airport but we don’t get enough Crawley people into those jobs.  These are people that don’t have to travel to work, we need Gatwick again to come up and work with us on our employment skills programme to actually deliver more Crawley people into well paid jobs at the airport.  The point I would like to make next is related to safeguarding but of course some of the issues over releasing the safeguarding also have downsides similar to the airport expansion or the increased use of the standby runway, in that more people come into work to Crawley to support the increased use of the airport and there are also more demands for housing so it has some concerns as increased use of the standby runway. So I think we need to think about that impact when people talk about the release of safeguarding. Finally I would like just to make a message to Gatwick that whatever happens to Crawley, it suffers a lot of the downside of the airport expansion and Crawley deserves a better share of the upside. Please can Gatwick help us with that. Thank you.

 

The Mayor then invited Councillor Lamb to have the right to reply and move the report in advance of the votes.

 

Councillor Lamb:

Thank you Mr Mayor. Well I will try and sum up my point of view of this debate. I won’t spend too long on the areas where there appears to be clear agreement, I’ll instead just focus on the real issue at the heart of it.

 

My viewpoint is much along the lines of that of Councillor Cheshire. When you look at these proposals I try to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of what the impact and benefits for the town are. When the last discussions on the second runway occurred, my viewpoint was that if Heathrow was granted another runway it would be to the detriment to the town and ultimately my preference was to have the second runway at Gatwick, via a cost benefit analysis. When we discuss this proposition, it appears as though Heathrow would not be growing at the cost of Gatwick, so we have to ask ourselves what the benefit of the proposal is. This proposal would enable the very rapid growth of the airport. So we’re not looking at long-term increase in jobs and work, as we were with the second runway.

 

At the same time, it comes with no real commitment to support the infrastructure which poses very big questions when we’re considering the increase in passengers we’re talking about, both at the airport itself and the catalytic growth we are likely to see coming out of it.

 

So it’s hard to see how any locals can benefit from this initiative. Much like Councillor Lunnon I share some pride in Gatwick and some pride in being a net producer of employment to the rest of the area. For those living locally, you can’t get much further from the edge of the town for a runway, so this noise issue doesn’t seem to be a big one given its location.

 

The failure of Gatwick to make explicit commitments to the improvement of infrastructure as part of the proposal means that we are confronted with an offer which presents more downsides than there are upsides.

 

So, I’m going to move the recommendation that we state our opposition to the additional runway proposal in its current form. Simply because, having spent much of the last 4-5 years trying to do something to improve rail capacity, trying to secure some improvements to major road capacity, trying to secure improvements to the infrastructure around housing, trying to secure improvements to local services and consistently finding things coming up short, I’m not convinced unless real money is put into those, in this case from the main beneficiary of an additional runway, we’re not going to see those services struggle, we’re not going to see as a town poorer service levels and as a representative for the local population that not is something I can support at this time.

 

Had Gatwick Airport put a proposal to us which included those commitments there might have been a very different outcome.

 

Following the conclusion of the debate, the Mayor invited the Head of Legal, Democracy and HR to lead the voting process on the three recommendations.

 

A vote was then called on Recommendation A, relating to the approval of the technical responses to the consultation Questions 3-11 which was carried unanimously.

 

A vote was then taken on Recommendation C, relating to approval of the technical response to Question 2, and the submission of this item’s verbatim Minute to substantiate the Full Council’s response to Question 1. The vote was carried unanimously.

 

Finally a recorded vote on Recommendation B was called. It was noted that Councillors had 4 options to vote upon, either Support, Neither Support or Oppose, Oppose, or Abstain in response to the Question 1 of the consultation, ‘Given the contents of the master plan, to what extent, if at all, do you support or oppose the principle of growing Gatwick by making best use of the existing runways in line with Government policy.’

 

Support

T Lunnon, M W Pickett and B J Quinn.  (3)

 

Neither Support or Oppose

M L Ayling, A Belben, T G Belben, D Crow, C R Eade, F Guidera, M G Jones,

C J Mullins, A Pendlington, C Portal Castro, P C Smith and L Vitler.  (12)

 

Oppose

N J Boxall, B J Burgess, R G Burgess, R D Burrett, C A Cheshire, R S Fiveash,

I T Irvine, K L Jaggard, P K Lamb, R A Lanzer, S Malik, K McCarthy, D M Peck,

T Rana, R Sharma, B A Smith, M A Stone, K Sudan, J Tarrant, G Thomas and

L Willcock.  (21)

 

Abstain

None.  (0)

 

The Council decision of Oppose by 21 votes, to Support 3 votes and Neither Support or Oppose 12 votes, with no abstentions, was then read out.

 

RESOLVED

 

That the Full Council

 

a)    approves the technical responses to the consultation Questions 3-11, as set out in Appendix A to report CEx/49, noting that the response to Question 3 is based on the Council’s previous position that it strongly disagrees that the land be safeguarded for the future construction of an additional second runway.

 

b)    in response to Question 1 of the consultation, ‘Given the contents of the master plan, to what extent, if at all, do you support or oppose the principle of growing Gatwick by making best use of the existing runways in line with Government policy’, the Full Council opposes the principle.

 

c)    that to substantiate its response to Question 1 of the consultation (Resolution b ) a that a copy of this item’s verbatim Minute, be submitted along with the technical response to Question 2, as set out in Appendix A to report CEx/49.