Boris Johnson's Cable Car funding plunges into crisis

Tower Hamlets Residents Group Press Release:

Boris Johnson's Cable Car funding plunges into crisis.


- Newham Councils Clive Dutton declares Cable Car fully funded.
- TfL deny private funding in place.
- Boris Johnson's Cable Car private funding promise in pieces.


A Campaign against Boris Johnson building a Cable Car through London City Airport's crash zone have uncovered that funding claims are completely unfounded.

Clive Dutton , Newham Councils Director for Regeneration last week told an influential group of planning strategists at the NLA that the Cable Car was fully funded.

Not so say Transport for London who just issued us with this reply,

"Funding arrangements for the scheme are still being finalised,although we anticipate that third party contributions, fare revenues and sponsorship will be key elements"

This is a far cry from TfL and the Mayors original claims of it being private sector funded. Fare revenue and sponsorship will not generate cash till after completion so where will the funding to build the project is still a mystery.

TfL's own Cable Car Consultation document stated that:

"TfL will not be paying to build this project. Instead, the project will be privately funded and discussions are taking place with interested third parties"

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has also stated

"The aim is to fund the construction of the scheme entirely from private finance"

The Mayor has already moved £1.2 million of taxpayer funded London Development Agency money into the scheme.

Resident Alan Haughton said

"We have gone from Cash Crisis to Crash Crisis. What should have been a simple, environmental way to cross the Thames has played out like an episode of The Office. Bad management, building through an airports crash zone , costs going from £25 million to £40 million and still no funding. Now if Boris Johnson could just perfect a David Brent style dance routine we may have found our opening act for the London Olympics"


ENDS

Contact - 0790 515 6922

(1) NLA - http://www. newlondonarchitecture.org/ event.php?id=227&name=nla_on_ location_investing_in_newham

(2) Cable Car Consultation Document http://www.architectsjournal. co.uk/Journals/1/Files/2010/7/ 5/PRINT%20FINAL.pdf

(3)BBC Funding report http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ mindthegap/2010/12/12m_cable_ car_may_not_be_ready.html

(4) £1.2 million authorisation. http://www.london.gov.uk/who- runs-london/mayor/mayoral- decisions/md727

'Why we should end domestic flights: aviation in the era of climate emergency"

Article from the Campaign Against Climate Change

Where:

SOAS, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh St, off Russell Square

Public Meeting, Wednesday 11th August

Around 40 people enjoyed an evening of discussion in SOAS.

John Stewart (chair of AirportWatch) kicked the evening off by stressing the importance of the Heathrow third runway victory to national airport expansion policy.

Dan Glass (Plane Stupid) then followed with a speech and PowerPoint presentation explaining the attractions of non-violent direct action and charting the history of the Plane Stupid campaign including his sticky meeting with Gordon Brown and multiple runway occupations.

Alan Haughton (Fight The Flights) gave us a passionate look into the plight of the people living in the area around City Airport and especially how unviable aviation would be if it were not for government subsidies.

Phil Thornhill (national co-ordinator) applauded the triumphs made at Heathrow, Stansted, and Gatwick, but also expressed the critical need for anti-expansion groups to triumph on a principal instead of individual expansionary proposals. He also noted the importance of direct action whilst highlighting the necessity of legal and inclusive public protests so as to render an argument of ‘illegitimacy’ or ‘marginal extremism’ moot.

The evening concluded with a lively Q&A session covering subjects such as freight transport, a just transition for aviation workers to a low carbon economy, and the need to address long-haul flights in addition to short-haul flights.

Jet vs Propellor: Greenwich Council's Failure

As we've documented before Greenwich Council are the only neighbouring council who continue to blindly support London City Airport expansion. However as we revealed some time ago, their support is based on absurd data and a report of errors by the planning officer which clearly showed that he had little or no understanding of the environmental impact of aircraft noise on the residential areas that Greenwich allow to continue to be built beneath the flight paths. Greenwich Council appear to have based their decision to support on noise data taken from STATIONARY ACTIVITIES ON THE LCY RUNWAY, EVEN THOUGH THE RUNWAY IS NOT IN THE BOROUGH OF GREENWICH! But let's just explain the background a little more:

Two years ago local councillor for Thamesmead Moorings and deputy head of the council Cllr Peter Brooks, assured a local resident that if they could provide the evidence that his officer had advised them incorrectly that he would get the issue sent back to the planning committee. The evidence was provided but a few weeks later the resident received a letter saying that the complaint was going to be forwarded to Newham Council to be dealt with. Once again, Greenwich Council were not willing to face the facts nor take responsiblity for their officer making a huge error in their planning report and recommendations to the planning committee.

The Greenwich Planning officer recommended to support the expansion of LCY. On looking through his report, it seemed apparent that not all of the information had been available to Greenwich, or that it had not been fully grasped by the officer as we found some serious errors/understanding in his report. The officer clearly believed, and continues to, as does the council on his advice: that propellor planes are noisier than jets. How silly is that!!

The LCY annual categorisation report, indicating that props are quieter than jets, has been forwarded to Greenwich on more than one occasion and yet with no response which addresses the error of the officer and how this clearly would have skewed the premise of his recommendations to the planning committee. From independent noise monitoring in Greenwich a jet from LCY is a minimum of around 10 dbs louder than a prop when it flies overhead. Most props are around 72-76 dbs as they pass, most jets are around 84 dbs and upwards.

Greenwich Council have continued to run with the line pushing London City Airport to replace all props with jets as is in their response to the LCY noise action plan. But this is the worst thing, as we know, and is rather embarrassing for Greenwich Council. The growth of the use in jets at LCY is already creating further noise disturbance than in the past, and yet Greenwich Council are saying 'we want more jets'.

We could not understand what had led the Greenwich officer come to such a conclusion and so an FOI was submitted to them. The response showed that the Greenwich Officer based his assumptions and recommendations on ground noise data on the runway itself!

This is quite extraordinary. It is not clear which document that Greenwich extracted this information from, and whether or not it was the most recent application. But the use of this data makes no sense at all - as the runway is not even in Greenwich, and the noise heard in Greenwich is not only noise from on the runway, but largely noise from the jets as they fly over on their low level flight path!

In a further FOI request and response, Steve Pallet from Greenwich Councils' Planning Department stated that almost 5000 properties in West Thamesmead would be covered by an expanded noise contour, inclusive of the 2000 additional dwellings that have been given outline planning permission to be built at Tilfenland's Tamesis Point , which is partially in the Public Safety (crash) Zone but which the landowners claim "promotes real quality of life"!. This is a huge increase on the current dwellings affected and you would have thought that Greenwich would have considered why, if jets are supposed to be quieter, that the contour was even growing to that extent with the proposed expansion. It just makes no sense at all, even from a laypersons point of view. Greenwich clearly were not aware that the increase in jets over props had already increased rapidly at the time of their decision. What did they think was making the noise contour grow?

Greenwich seemed to be under the impression that noise monitoring should continue as it had by LCY (they appeared to have no idea that no reliable readings had taken place by the airport for around 8 years) and that all the data they had been provided with was based on estimates.

Greenwich Planning board supported the expansion, we believe 1 vote tipped this, and it is arguable that if the accurate facts were presented, that the board had been alerted to the possible environmental and health impacts, and that no health impact study had been carried out in Greenwich, that the planning board outcome would have been very different.

Furthermore, in regards to the Noise Action Plan consultation run by LCY and Greenwich's response to it: You will note that Greenwich still continue to push for more jets to replace props as they believe this will be quieter! This offers no prospect to the homes in the noise contour having noise levels halted, nor reduced at all.

No health impact study was carried out for Greenwich, despite it being the only borough with homes in the public safety zone (crash zone) and the Greenwich PCT have confirmed in an FOI request that they were NOT consulted on this issue. This seems peculiar, particularly as there are such severe respiratory and cardiovascular health issues in the area. The mortality data by ward in Greenwich, received from the PCT, for Thamesmead Moorings (the ward nearest to the airport in Greenwich) shows that actual cardiovascular mortality is well beyond the expected baselines for men and women. This corresponds with the evidence on links between cardiovascular disease and excessive noise/pollution around airports.

We do not believe that any environmental impact study was carried out specifically upon Greenwich, though this may have been missed.

So, what next for Greenwich? They are in an increasingly embarrassing position whilst there is growing political focus on the impact of LCY expansion than ever before and the upcoming judicial review challenging the increase of flights. This is in addition to the boroughs around Newham all noticing an increase in noise from the increased use of jets, who have been more than vocal about this: how on earth does this bypass Greenwich Council? Ear defenders are perhaps given out to the planning committee?

Woudn't it be nice, and terribly democratic, if the leader of Greenwich Council, Cllr Chris Roberts finally did the right thing and got this issue fully reviewed within Greenwich? Perhaps they might consider getting some professional advice next time, rather than the seemingly amateur assessment that was made and passed as a recommendation to the planning committee. They might want to consider why their officer felt that it was appropriate to use stationary noise taken from the airport in Newham rather than look at the estimated projected noise contours that were to widely expand over Greenwich, and Tamesis Point. Those 120,000 flights have to fly over Greenwich, they don't simply land vertically onto the runway.

All documents referred to in this blog item are available upon request.

Mapping Noise - The Original Story Behind Noise Mapping Around London City Airport

London Assembly meeting on City Airport deferred

The London Assembly Environment Committee’s 10 June public meeting on expansion at London City Airport has been deferred.

In March this year, the Committee launched an inquiry into the environmental controls around the expansion of the East London airport, which could see flights increase from 91,000 to 120,000 annually. ^[1]

The deferral of the June meeting enables the Committee to conduct further background work, including a site visit. It also allows the Committee to await the outcome of the current Judicial Review of the decision to permit expansion and assess how it will impact on operations at the airport. ^[2]

The Committee intends to reschedule a public meeting for the autumn. In the meantime, members of the public are encouraged to continue sharing their views on how flights at London City Airport affect them by completing a short survey at: http://www.london.gov.uk/city-airport.

Red Bull VS London City Airport

Great article by James Ranger in the Wanstead & Woodford Guardian today.

Interesting comment from London City Airport too:

"A letter of objection was submitted by the airport in March 2010 to London Borough of Newham opposing Red Bull’s application.

“The comments made by Plane Stupid are totally inaccurate and do not reflect the airport’s position.”

It is very strange they didn't mention the whole story: At the London City Airport Consultative committee just a couple of weeks ago, the airport representative, Gary Hodgetts, allegedly stated they were currently ''in discussions with Red Bull over the application'' - but if the airport have objected what is there to discuss? 

Of course London City Airport is no stranger to objecting to developments around it, and then withdrawing those objections for various reasons: Columbus Tower and also Crossrail. Compensation was sought over Crossrail. 

Watch this space.

If you would like to object to the Red Bull Madness to build another runway in the middle of a residential area in East London then click here. You might also like to look at the type of activities that Red Bull wish to bring back to the most densely populated area of this country, and the risks involved.

FTF at Oxfam's Climate Question Time - Newham

At the Newham Oxfam Climate Question Time: Stephen Timms MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was very keen on aviation growth....whilst making it clear that us mere mortals have so many ways in which we can reduce our
emissions! Strangely for a Financial Secretary to the Treasury , there was NO mention of what BUSINESS could do to help with climate change, the local environment and the required reduction in emissions: that is until that issue was raised in relation to aviation by a member of the audience.

Timms is very keen on allowing the rich (the richly subsidised and pocketing aviation industry in particular) to trade in carbon credits - the European Emissions Trading Scheme. This is the answer to all the climate issues of the world, well that's what he believes. We'd like him to review that after what he heard at Wednesday's meeting.

Apparently the tax that will be collected from the scheme would be of great benefit when government throw a brown paper bag of notes over to areas such as flooded Bangladesh, after the damage from climate change has already occurred of course. Timms referred this to 'environmental mitigation' . Mitigation in Newham - it's put into policy and planning documents but rarely put into practice for the benefit of it's residents.

Personally, we suspect this money wouldn't be any more use at that point, in terms of 'mitigation', than a few sandbags being handed out once everything has already been lost and washed away. It was pointed out that this was simply allowing the rich to pay to pollute the poor, that it was selfish and an irresponsible policy unless the government was willing to halt growing emissions, from the aviation industry for example. Otherwise surely it was a case of continuing to allow the annual 3,000 premature deaths in London and the floods in Bangladesh to further deteriorate, and to throw money at those groups after they suffer, and lives are lost, whilst government and big businesses continued 'business as usual' wasn't it? This surely at the very least is nothing more than patronising, devalues the worth of individuals, and once again values money above all other factors?

Public transport, poverty and car use in Newham was also raised. There's a lot of problems with transport and inequalities in Newham. Timms displaying just how out of touch he is with residents in his borough, claimed that there had been huge transport improvements: DLR (paid for by taxpayers) and Eurostar..and that buses had improved. DLR and Eurostar are a luxury to residents in one of the most socially deprived boroughs in London.

A lady on the bus told us that she couldn't afford/nor was it practical to travel by tube/DLR to her job in EC1.She spends almost 4 hours a day travelling into the city for her minimum wage. It takes so long as the bus often simply doesn't turn up so she has to allow extra time, lots of extra time. Her 4 children and husband are used to her being out 12 hours a day, but are not happy about it and worry about her safety. We've heard from more than one MP say they wouldn't use public transport/or go out alone in the evening because of concern for their personal safety. Unfortunately most residents don't have employers (yes, us the taxpayers) who will pay for them to stay over in hotels, or perhaps pay for them to travel by taxis so they don't have to face those scary, and long commutes over short distances to and from work. It's no wonder so many people struggle to run cars to get around, but they are the very people who government appear to be looking to for reducing emissions whilst big business carries on increasing theirs. These issues clearly all provide barriers to employment, and a way out of poverty and pollution in Newham, but they are certainly not ones that the local politicians seem to grasp.

But don't worry, residents might not be able to afford to get to work in a time efficient way, or have the time to travel to work for 4 hours a day because of family responsibilities...BUT there are more flights for the rich, who don't live in Newham, don't contribute to Newham but whom DO use London City Airport and whom leave rather a lot of pollution behind for the less privileged to breathe.

It was interesting that Timms started his initial answer to all these points that 'the answer is not to shut London City Airport' (trebles all round for that statement in the airport hospitality room for Timms next time he visits). Strangely the audience member who posed the questions had not even made such a suggestion that the airport should close, but instead highlighted the importance of 'balanced decisions, taking all issues into account, but certainly not allowing the airport to expand''. .

But Timms is banking on biofuels for aviation (he failed to mention about the mass de-forestation and food crops declining as a result of the current poorly planned quest for unsustainable biofuels though). Unfortunately you couldn't help but feel that banking might be the operative word, yes governments banking that money all the way to the bank, whilst further damaging our environment, communities and seeing premature deaths continue to rise in London. In fact Newham even knows a bit about biofuels as it's also approved a more than controversial biofuel plant which is alleged will pour yet more harmful emissions and asthma inducing pollutants into the already over polluted air in East London.

Timms, although we are sure he is an exceptionally personable individual is sorely misguided and wrong. He simply misses the issues that are right beneath his nose in his own constituency, let alone globally. Perhaps this was apparent in his inability to answer the questions that were put to him.

Thanks to Oxfam for their great work in encouraging debate in communities and bringing the issues to a local level and also to the two NGO panel members invited by Oxfam: Sabino Miranda of the Climate Change Youth Development Trust and Monjural from the European Action Group on Climate Change in Bangladesh. These groups and individuals are carrying out such valuable grass roots work, building communities and building understanding.

Regeneration sinks around London City Airport

London City Airport keeps saying they are good for the local economy and that it attracts investment into the area. Perhaps they can take credit for the failure of the £1.5bn Silvertown Quays regeneration. Europe's largest Aquarium project (Biota!) is sinking! It has been given a 90 day notice by the London Development Agency.

Newham Council has approved expansion even though the brand new Building 1000 remained empty for 5 years, failing to attract a single corporate client. In the end Newham Council bought this building at cost of £100m (or so). And another 3 similar buildings were never built! So in all the airport allegedly appears to have cost £400m for the Royal Docks business park plus £1.5bn for Silvertown Quays.

The following is from the Evening Standard, but some other media sources are being more optimistic saying that Silvertown Quay Ltd would find an investor within the deadline. But the project has been dithering since 2002.... It they could not get off the ground during the boom, can they succeed during such a time?

Just how much say did Mayor Boris Johnson have in this?

Evening Standard Item:

Plans for a £1.5 billion development in east London which was set to include Europe's largest aquarium were in tatters today after the owners of the site pulled the plug on the deal.

The scheme for the land adjacent to London City Airport was meant to feature a sandy beach as well as 5,000 homes. But landowner London Development Agency has withdrawn from an agreement with its partners, the Silvertown Quays consortium, after the plans failed to progress in seven years.

Planning permission was given for the 68-acre site in April 2007 but the scheme, designed by

Sir Terry Farrell, fell victim to the property slump.

Contributed by a Newham resident.

LCYs New Flight Path 'Surprise' Erodes Leyton and Wanstead's Peace

For some months now we have been getting a steady stream of emails from residents in the Leyton and Wanstead areas. All the residents emailing have been saying the same: that whilst not having been affected by aircraft noise in the past, they suddenly found themselves to be in the past few months.

Why? Well most of the residents know something has changed just by the noise and the sight of London City Airport flights crawling over their rooftops. But in so far as the residents being told what has happened, and why things have/or were to change - the vast majority were told nothing.

To help explain we need to turn the clock back to last summer.

Last year the government asked the aviation industries National Air Traffic Systems (NATS work out the flight paths and form air traffic control) to look at making some changes to flight paths. It wasn't a favour of course, money was exchanged for the service.

London and the south east are identified by NATS as Terminal Control North (TCN). TCN is one of the most complex and busiest airspaces in the UK, and probably Europe. Put this into context with a government that can't get enough flights into the sky, and the aviation industry who want the same and suddenly a plan is needed as to how all these extra flights could be fitted into our already overcrowded skies.

So NATS launched a consultation last year, though not many people knew about it, especially those that might be affected by the changes proposed. NATS placed a few consultation packs in local libraries at a time when libraries appear to be in terminal decline, and online. By some sheer accident NATS did receive some feedback on the proposals: and the feedback was so negative that NATS made the following statement:

"In February 23 2009 NATS announced that it is to conduct a new consultation on revised proposals for the TCN region".

Within those original proposals was a set for the change of flight paths for London City Airport. Because London City Airport is now using more and more larger planes, mostly jets, whilst propeller plane use is reduced the Civil Aviation Authority told us that flight path changes would have to be made. This is due to the fact that a jet cannot follow the same flight path as a propeller plane - particularly when arching - or turning in layman's terms. This is 100% a choice of London City Airport to increase the use of these bigger jets over propeller planes, and it is because of this that the flight paths have changed. LCY will tell you they are not responsible - yet the responsiblity lies very much on their runway.

The Civil Aviation Authority and London City Airport have been giving out interesting and conflicting responses to residents who have been complaining for the first time, and both have produced their own internal conflicting responses. They mention SIDs (Standard Instrument Departures) and in one sentence say there has been no flight path change, only in the next to state their has been a 'shift' and in another response admitting there has indeed been a change.

Take it from us, and your own ears: there has been a change, and the Civil Aviation Authority paperwork confirms this. Flight paths have changed over the Wanstead and Leyton areas - they have moved to affect homes which had previously not been affected. The CAA's authorisation of this change acknowledged that the change was not ideal, but pretty much stated that there was nowhere else for London City Airports big jets to fly over, so it's just tough luck.

You might be asking, why did this change go ahead though, when NATs issued a statement saying that "In February 23 2009 NATS announced that it is to conduct a new consultation on revised proposals for the TCN region". Well exactly!

NATS made that statement and then the Civil Aviation Authority promptly went and signed off the TCN proposals for change at London City Airport. Sneaky eh? One of our seasoned technical colleagues made the following comments on this whole smoke and mirror affair:

This is a splendid example of what lawyers termed "suppressio veri and suggestio falsi" until dog-Latin disappeared from the courts.

The routing of flights HAS been changed. Maybe not by a lot, bit it has changed. What they've done is develop a line of argument that the departure routes "are not designed for modern aircraft" (that's code for "heavier aircraft, flying faster, and with FMS settings designed more for passenger comfort than carrying out tighter turns").

Note that any consideration of the obverse: not permitting the use of aircraft which cannot follow the established SIDs; never enters their consiousness.

And it is downright shameful to claim that the required airspace change has gone though ALL of the stages of CAA's Airspace Change Process as defined in CAP725. What seems to have happened is that these changes for City were included in the TC North proposals, which got a severe kicking from the public and were withdrawn - EXCEPT that CAA were persuaded that despite accepting that TC North proposals were dead in the water, they could nod through the City component of those proposals in isolation, without telling too many people about it, nevertheless claiming that they'd followed the CAP725 rules. Disingenuous, or what?

What more can we say? Don't forget if you are a resident in these areas please check out our information on 'what you can do' and the meeting this Friday in Leyton.

Useful Links:

CAA Authorisation to change LCY flight paths:
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/7/20090220NATMACInformativeDecisionLetterLCA-PWRevision.pdf

CAA Announce Changes to flight path at LCY:
http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=14&pagetype=65&appid=7&newstype=n&mode=detail&nid=1736

THE WHARF NEWSPAPER (AKA) The London City Airport Rag.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks I must say for FTF. We've been sent more information about the aviation industry and London City Airport. We'll report on it over the coming week.

One thing that has been going on is that an article in The Wharf (aka) The LCY Rag has generated a much needed conversation between Anti LCY expansion and Pro LCY commentators. This at face value is fantastic as London City Airport and LB Newham will not have such a discussion.

But something surprising seems to be happening over at The Wharf (aka) The London City Airport Rag. Comments from Residents who are against the expansion at LCY have been removed while comments made by people who are either for the expansion or residents who want an open discussion on the expansion have not been removed from what we’ve seen on the comments section.

We've asked ourselves why this has happened.

1. Has bad language been used? Not from copies of the comments that we've received.

2. Has there been politically incorrect words or statements used? Again not from what we've seen from comments received.

3. Has there been anything negatively commented about LCY? Yes there have been comments from residents which are against LCY's expansion plans and some of the tactics used by them and groups around them. Are they valid comments? We would say they are, but it seems the Wharf (aka) the LCY Rag don’t think so.

4. Have there been comments about the local media and their handling of reports about LCY Good or Bad? Yes there have been comments about some of the local media and their choices on what to report on and what not to report on when it came to LCY.

So what can we take from this?

We have our thoughts. We will of course be contacting the editor of The Wharf (aka) The London City Airport Rag, to find out why they have decided to censor comments from concerned residents. We will of course make sure that we report what they’ve said if they make comment at all on this Blog site.

We want a debate about London City Airport and their expansion plans even if LCY, LB Newham and other interested parties don’t.

"UPDATE"

We have been informed that The Wharf aka The LCY Rag has removed some comments from a commentator who was attacking residents who are against LCY's expansion. We are pleased at least to see that on this comments section they have been more even handed than previous cases.

"END UPDATE"

How's Your Health: Around London City Airport?

Why do we and others want to stop expansion at London City Airport? That little matter of health is rather important us, even if it isn't to LCY (and its supporters) who are allegedly hiding air quality readings from the GMB who accuse them of a toxic terminal!
Well here's some toxic evidence for you:
Health in the areas around the airport:
The Biggest killers in the London Borough of Newham are: in order;

1.Cancer
2.Chronic obstructive pulmonary
3.Stroke
4.Pneumonia
5.COPD
6.Asthma

The 2001 Census reported that 26,000 people (10.5% of total population) in Newham live with a long term limiting illness; including 4,000 under 19, and 12,500 aged 65 and over

Newham has higher than average infant mortality and the gap is widening

Higher than average respiratory diseases

Highest level of mortality rates in under 30s with asthma in the whole country

Higher than average mortality rates from asthma, pneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary (CHC) disease than London and England

Higher than average infant mortality rates: Newham has above average levels for London and England – with the gap widening, not narrowing

Comparative evidence of the connections of these illnesses to aircraft pollution:

Taken from campaign group LEAD: http://www.lead.org.au/Lanv7n3/L73-4.html
“The area heavily contaminated by a light to medium traffic two runway airport is approximately 12 miles around the field and 20 miles or more downwind. A single runway equipped airport with light to medium traffic contaminates an area about 6 miles around the field and 20 downwind”.

Extract of "Airports: Deadly Neighbors" by Charles R. Miller

What kinds of health effects may be occurring to the population in your neighborhood can be seen from a report, dated June 20, 1997 to the Georgetown Crime Prevention and Community Council by the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health.

Georgetown is an area of Seattle, and surrounds the King County International Airport (Boeing Field), King County, in turn, surrounds greater Seattle. (The Georgetown Council is a sister organization to AReCO and member of US-CAW (United States Citizens Aviation Watch). When comparing hospitalization rates for Georgetown (Zip Code 98108) to those of King and North King Counties, the following, alarming statistics resulted:

a 57% higher asthma rate
a 28% higher pneumonia/influenza rate
a 26% higher respiratory disease rate
an 83% higher pregnancy complication rate
a 50% higher infant mortality rate
genetic diseases are statistically higher
mortality rates are 48% higher for all causes of death: 57% higher for heart disease, a 36% higher cancer death rate with pneumonia and influenza among the top five leading causes average life expectancy 70.4 years (the same as in many developing nations) compared to Seattle's of 76.0 years.

Can you see any similarities there? It's hard not to see them. Still the aviation industry will keep telling you how clean and green they are, Peter Simpson of City Flyer is one of those who should be answerable to those individuals in the area around London City who are ill from the effect of his business seeking more profits, whilst air limits already exceed EU recommended levels by 50%.

Mary Honeyball MEP and the European Elections

UPDATE: We have still not received a response to the questions we put to Mary Honeyball.

It is quite surprising that an MEP who is currently canvassing for votes seems to have such little concern in answering residents legitimate concerns at this time.

As we've suggested before - if your MEP does not address your concerns, or answer your emails, then find one that does, and move your vote. Mary's reticence to address the health and pollution concerns which affect broad swathes of east and south London, and the ADDITIONAL 46,000 residents as a result of London City Airport expanding, is quite outstanding.

Why wouldn't Mary have concern for the effect on children's development and an increase in NOx to air levels already exceeding the EU directive limits by 50%?

Because she doesn't care? Because perhaps she is pro-aviation at any cost to peoples lives and health in London? Because she doesn't care about east and south east Londoners? Because she didn't hear that 3000 people had premature deaths due to air pollution in London? Because she is out of touch?

Because all we want is a response to our questions from someone, who we pay the salary for, to represent us in the European Parliament.

What next after us mere residents daring to ask Mary questions...us asking and lobbying for MEP expenses to be fully transparent?

London City Airport - Increased Pollution in Crash Zone

London City Airport claims in it's own Masterplan that: "The future expansion in aircraft movements, combined with the changes in aircraft and their engines, will increase NOx emissions mainly at the runway and Public Safety Zones [crash zone] away from residential areas"....

Is that why the only residential properties that would be covered by the crash zone which are in Greenwich were not initially consulted (and in fact we don't even know if they have been yet)?

What is even more curious, is that London City Airport were more than well aware of the Gallions Reach Urban Village developments in LB Greenwich, and how much the expansion would enlarge the crash zone over the area. So why do they claim that this increase in harmful NOx emissions would be away from residential areas? They knew that the crash zone would be covering 100s of properties in the area, and 1000s of residents.

So what, you may think? Well NOx is dangerous to humans - it can make you very ill, and in fact can worsen asthma, respiratory diseases and even kill you:

'NO_x react with ammonia, moisture, and other compounds to form nitric acid vapor and related particles. Small particles can penetrate deeply into sensitive lung tissue and damage it, causing premature death in extreme cases. Inhalation of such particles may cause or worsen respiratory diseases such as emphysema, bronchitis it may also aggravate existing heart disease.

NO_x react with volatile organic compounds in the presence of heat and sunlight to form Ozone. Ozone can cause adverse effects such as damage to lung tissue and reduction in lung function mostly in susceptible populations (children, elderly, asthmatics). Ozone can be transported by wind currents and cause health impacts far from the original sources. Millions of Americans live in areas that do not meet the health standards for ozone.

NO_x also readily react with common organic chemicals, and even ozone, to form a wide variety of toxic products: nitroarenes, nitrosamines and also the nitrate radical some of which may cause biological mutations.'

So that's all very healthy for the residents in the crash zone in Gallions Reach Urban Village, West Thamesmead, Greenwich then!

So how much do the effects of NOx cost to the National Health System? Well according to Newham PCT health impact study they didn't seem to think there were any bad effects at all, or at the most, they were minimal. Is death minimal? Strange that, because as part of the NHS you would have thought they would have considered the health impact of the expansion of flights, and the cost of the impact on health to the NHS. Not only was the report weak, it failed to mention that Newham had the highest levels of mortality in under 30s in the UK from asthma (and Newham are even working with AsthmaUK on this issue right now, so you can't say they forgot) and failed to flag up any connections between pollution and respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, deaths in London due to air pollution, and the effect of excessive noise on the development on children. As for NOx directly related illnesses, it seems they've forgotten to address those!

Curious indeed! You may be interested to know that Richard Gooding CEO of London City Airport is on the board of the Newham University Hospital Trust(however his photo and reference to him has mysteriously disappeared - we'll be asking the Trust to confirm if he is still a member of the board). He's certainly listed as a stakeholder, as is his friend and fanzine editor Colin Grainger from the biased reporting Newham Recorder. No conflict of interest there then!

London City Airports Most Polluting Routes On Map

For the first time, you are able to see the amount of harmful emissions which London City Airport routes create over Europe on a map here. You can also see London City Airports Top 10 destinations by passengers.

The map shows the flight paths for LONDON CITY in 2008. Note that this does not take into account non-passenger air movements or any factors that would make emissions on a given route higher than normal (per passenger mile). For airports with large amounts of freight or non-commercial aviation the numbers will be higher than this total.

The total amount of CO2 emissions from London City Airport passenger flights in 2008 was 94454.86 tonnes.

Just how many of those trips could have been made by a less polluting rail trip? Quite a few by the appearance, especially Edinburgh. We'll be doing a follow up on the alternatives later on in the month.

Please consider TRAIN over PLANE if rail is an alternative.

London City Airport Loses YOU Thousands On Property

Not only do you have to pay extra taxes for London City Airports security, but you also pay for the airports noisy, and polluting operations...on the value of your property.

The Stop Stansted Expansion campaign group looked into this issue more closely and presented evidence at the last Stansted Public Inquiry in 2007. Ken McDonald, the author, found that aviation expansion was responsible for the loss of domestic property value of approximately £1 billion in and around the environs of Stansted Airport. You can read the whole paper here.

The paper showed that airport expansion when announced by SERAS in 2002 had a subsequent negative economic impact in the area surrounding Stansted airport compared with not only the rest of Essex but also neighbouring Herts and South Cambs. You can also view this information on the Stop Stansted Expansion website together with all the back up figures from the Land Registry statistics.

We haven't carried out anything like this for London City Airport, but the same principles apply to the areas affected by London City Airports' threatened expansion and have potentially already lost domestic property owners £1000s on the value of their homes adding up to millions in the areas affected. That's exclusive of the effect of falling property prices caused by the current recession.

However, to all those doubters out there (mostly the airport shareholders and their staff) there is also further evidence to support the findings in Ken's paper: Findaproperty published an article entitled 'Beware The Pungent Pong' 10 Jun 2003 as a news item. It stated that being near an airport or flightpath reduces the value of homes at a minimum of 15%. Cranfield University's Peter Brooker also produced a paper on 'Aircraft Noise Annoyance House Prices And Valuation 2006. He quoted that current government policy (DfT) states:

“…we will work to ensure that aviation meets its external costs, including its
environmental and health costs. The aviation industry has a responsibility to
reduce its impacts under the 'polluter pays' principle.”

Valuation of aircraft noise’s external costs is a vital component of environmental
impact assessment. If, say, Heathrow airport’s runways are operated differently, or if
new runways are built, then what are the corresponding environmental costs? What
are aviation’s ‘external costs’ for noise disturbance?

And yet strangely that valuation of aircraft noise's external costs are not addressed in environmental impact assessments at London City Airport at all in so much as the value of property being affected. When this issue was raised to the Newham Council Planning officer - a resident was told that property value was 'not a consideration of the planning process in relation to London City Airports expansion'. It seems that perhaps the Planning Officer had misunderstood the policy principle, or perhaps chose to.

So how much can homeowners in Newham and the neighbouring boroughs expect to lose on the value of their property, simply because of noise and air pollution? Not being able to open windows is not a selling point, neither is not being able to sit in your garden, like the man in Bexleyheath complained about. The noise of City Airport planes really worried him. As we all know 99% of the housing affected in the noise contour zone will not be entitled to any noise management assistance from the airport at all.

At a minimum it seems that you will lose 15% on the value of your property. Seeing that the area is the most densely occupied area of the country, the loss to property value could well exceed that in the environs of Stansted. The property is blighted and the area is blighted due to London City Airport wanting to continue to expand.

The airport isn't discussing this, and never will, as it could cost them money. The London Borough of Newham doesn't care about how much property owners lose, either in the quality of their lives or value of their homes - as long as they please Sir Rob and Richard Gooding. Newham are terribly impressed by big business, rather too easily impressed in our opinion.

What is most amusing about this evidence, and all the other evidence that has been carried out and supports that aviation does have a negative effect on home values is that London City Airport asked one of their consultants to carry out some research into this. Of course, they found that no value was lost at all on the value of properties.

You've got to laugh at how they managed to miss all this evidence! As we say, we are fighting against the lies, for the truth. Seems they still don't deal in the truth, particularly if it may cost them money in the community.

A Residents Report - The State of London's Environment: Ignored by "The Money"

Last Saturday I spent the day at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre for The State of London Debate - arranged by the Mayor of London to increase the accountability of the GLA to Londoners.

On the whole I was impressed with the speakers, with the exception of Jo Valentine of London First and Stuart Fraser, Economic Development London Councils, who did not impress me at all. What struck me was their rather out of date attitude vis-a-vis the current problems of aviation noise and pollution in London. It seems they have an over-arching aim to make London the best city in the world in which to live, work and invest. Well obviously they have not cast their eyes over recent statistics with regard to air pollution in London; which is clearly not one of the best places to live because it is now known as the dirtiest, noisiest and most polluted capital in Europe.

In fact London's dirty air is responsible for the deaths of over 3,000 people a year. London's emissions are well above those that have been set by the EU and the United Kingdom is about to be fined.

I was disappointed that not only did neither Jo Valentine nor Stuart Fraser seem to grasp the serious challenges that London is facing with regard to the air and noise pollution suffered by millions, they showed no evidence of understanding that London needs innovative approaches and practical solutions to the problem. In fact they both reminded me of uninformed and not very creative dinosaurs.

In addition, the reply that Jo Valentine made with regard to a question on litter was actually quite disturbing. She stressed that it was very important indeed to clear up the areas of London that visitors would pass through during the Olympic Games. However, the other areas seen by and lived in by Londoners on a daily basis were not mentioned by her at all. Presumably, since only local people would see them they were not nearly as important and any litter and mess could be safely ignored.

Therefore I would hazard a guess that Jo Valentine is not a community person.

Seachanges

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FTF comment:

Fraser and Valentine are both from banking backgrounds and clearly put profit before people. Valentine of London First (otherwise known as Money First), has been a long time supporter of London City Airports growth and appears not to be concerned about the negative effects of such business expansion on residential communities at all.

These individuals are clearly not concerned at the flawed and missing data that the airport has provided over the years, nor has Valentine acknowledged that the airport has failed to meet even 50% of it's most conservative prediction of the amount of jobs it would create in the last 10 years.

Valentine thinks that LCA is good for Newham: just 120 directly employed jobs have been given to Newham residents in over 20 years of the airport running. This is compared with an ever increasing amount of residents in east and south east London being affected by the 57DB+ noise contour. Upon any expansion almost 100,000 residents will be affected by these excessive noise levels.

Will Fraser and Valentine be two of those residents we wonder? If they were, would they still choose to ignore the social, over the profit? Lets hope their children don't have to sit in a class room that is disturbed by a flight roaring over every 90 seconds, and their development being affected, lets hope also that they don't have to deal with the illnesses associated with excessive aviation noise and pollution levels.

Newham residents haven't gained much at all from this airport that has been allowed to grow beyond the limits promised faithfully to the communities of East London: Newham is still one of the most socially deprived boroughs in the country, and tops a lot of other 'negative' categories in healthcare and childrens educational development. It also has one of the worst housing shortages in the country.

So obviously 20 years is not enough for the airport to have shown the 'trickle down' effect - so businesses answer is? To expand more, to socially experiment more, on one of the poorest boroughs in London. And lets not forget that this 'experiment' cost London taxpayers £24million pounds over the past 5 years.

Buchanon Wheels Off: Toad On The Road

Charles Buchanan has disappeared from London City Airport. Why should you be interested you ask? Well for those of you who went to the shambles of the Planning Meeting at LB Newham will remember him as the smug toad who sat crossed armed laughing and smiling at protesters and residents. Such was the anger he instilled that people actually shouted at the speaker to ask him to stop his smug, smarmy little smirks.

Richard Gooding of course wouldn't have the bottle to stand up and face real people so Charlie was the canary they sent down the mine. Now that the face of expansion at the council and airport disappears it still leaves us with the disastrous consequences. We have seen communications from Charlie only weeks ago still trying to persuade people about the benefits of expansion. Well according to his Linkedin profile he's still there. Maybe his one connection will actually believe that. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/4/820/990

Charlie over his tenure seemed more adept at collecting titles rather than actually doing anything productive - Director of Business Development , Strategy Director and Strategy and Communications Director. His handling of objections to the airport were disasterous. The masterplan (nothing master about it at all) looks like it's to be consigned to history with everyone from Boris Johnson to the Green Party saying that it would be hard to justify anymore expansion or calling for the airport to be closed. Every single candidate in the recent Royal Docks by-election were against expansion.

Year to date the airport business is down 9.6% while Charlies little baby - The Jet Centre - is down a spectacular 35%!

One has to wonder what has happened - has Charles Buchanon been sacked? No press release from the airport and as they only announce good news - this obviously isn't! Perhaps Charlie had more of those open conversations on the DLR about the plans of London City Airport, and their cosy relationship with LB Newham?

But here at FTF we have to salute Buchanan - such was peoples ire after watching his actions at the planning meeting, here at FTF we were inundated by upset people offering help and assistance helping us go from strength to strength. Over the weekend make sure you raise a glass "to A Right Charlie!" or was that "a 'smarmy Charlie?!"