A cabinet minister today told of local people’s “horror” at changes to flights into Gatwick which were making their lives “a misery”.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude also warned against the airport being allowed to have a second runway because it would cause a “vast increase in noise and disturbance”.
Mr Maude, the MP for Horsham, spoke out as campaigners were due to go to Downing Street to deliver a letter urging No 10 to recognise the strength of opposition to expanding the airport and to last year’s changes to incoming flights.
He said: “Local residents, who have for years tolerated moderate aircraft noise because it was spread out, were horrified to find that the concentration of aircraft over a narrow flight path made their lives a misery.
"It is hard to see how the area could accommodate the vast increase in noise and disturbance, together with doubling the usage on the already overburdened infrastructure that a second runway at Gatwick would entail.”
Local people have already pledged £100,000 to fund a judicial review against the Civil Aviation Authority for allegedly acting unlawfully by failing to step in over the reported funnelling of some inbound flights, more than doubling the frequency of low-level planes over Tunbridge Wells and the High Weald. The CAA has denied that it could have intervened.
A Gatwick spokeswoman said: “We recognise another runway at Gatwick will affect more people with noise and we are doing everything we can to help them. However, in the end the choice is between 320,000 newly affected at Heathrow or 13,000 at Gatwick.”
