Catherine Baart, Green County Councillor for Reigate South (Surrey County Council)
Good evening – I am a Green county councillor for Surrey, and my division includes major routes to the airport.
Gatwick Airport Ltd is a private company, which wants to be allowed to expand in order to make money – nothing wrong in that, as long as it takes responsibility for mitigating the impacts of its expansion.
But Gatwick Airport Ltd is not taking that responsibility seriously – and here are some examples:
- The area in which the airport is situated is already water stressed and the water companies tell us it will become even more stressed due to climate change and housing, yet Gatwick proposes nothing about water neutrality or reducing water demand;
- An expanded Gatwick will generate more sewage for Horley and Crawley treatment works, yet capacity at Horley works is already so far exceeded that recently the sewage simply overwhelmed the works, flooded the footpath and flowed into the River Mole. Gatwick has not engaged with Thames Water on how to avoid further sewage pollution;
- Gatwick airport is built on a flood plain, and its expansion plans to tarmac over more of the flood plain, yet it does not know what the flooding impact downstream will be;
- An expanded Gatwick will generate more traffic on already congested local roads, but it is content to leave that problem to the local councils to sort out, with their limited resources; and
- And a bigger Gatwick will take up than its current share of the national carbon budget, making it so much harder for the UK to meet its legally binding carbon targets, to limit catastrophic climate disruption.
We have been told that an expanded Gatwick will benefit the economy by bringing more overseas tourists to the area; but tourists are not going to want to visit an area, which is polluted, congested, and flooded, with ruined natural habitats.
The modelling provided by Gatwick to describe the impacts of its expansion is not fit for purpose. The Environment Agency, Natural England, National Highways, Thames Water and local councils have all requested better data and modelling from Gatwick, but to no avail.
Gatwick Airport ltd is not taking enough responsibility for the impacts its expansion will have on the surrounding area and the planet. It appears to want to get its planning permission and realize its investment gain – but leave everyone else to cope with the consequences.
