Night flight protests

8:27am Monday 7th November 2005

CAMPAIGNERS rallied in force at the Houses of Parliament to hound the Government into rethinking its night flight proposals.

Local MPs, council leaders and residents have been disturbed by recent Government plans to relax restrictions on the number of late flights at London's three main airports Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick in the next seven years. Stop Stansted Expansion group members joined campaigners from Heathrow and Gatwick last Monday evening in a passionate attempt to get the message across at Westminster.

Bishop's Stortford MP Mark Prisk brandished a pair of ear defenders to emphasise the devastating effect that night flights would have on residents in the area.

He said: "The Govern-ment is deaf to reason and we must shout loudly and clearly. Night noise is the most intrusive and insidious form of noise and proposals for a 41 per cent increase at Stansted are disgraceful."

Conservative shadow transport secretary Alan Duncan, Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Tom Brake, Essex County Council vice-chairman and Ongar county councillor Gerard McEwen and Uttlesford District Council leader Mark Gayler were among those on hand to address the 400-strong crowd.

Following Government promises in its 2003 Air Transport White Paper to "bear down" on night noise Stop Stansted Expansion deputy chairman Norman Mead warned the Department for Transport it should listen more closely to those who were worst affected.

And he said: "When you take the path of deceit and betrayal, you are taking advantage of the goodwill of ordinary law-abiding people and you are treading on dangerous ground.

"It's not too late for the Government to start behaving responsibly on the night flights issue and I urge it to do so even at this late stage."

"Local communities around airports have suffered long enough and our patience is wearing thin.

"We need to start seeing across-the-board reductions in the number of night flights and we need to start seeing that now."