London City Airport Jobs: False Hopes, Cruel Hoax

The disingenuous London City Airport continues to be revealed as purposely feeding the communities with inaccurate and misleading information in a bid to quell objections. And what for? To get what they want: a load of money at the expense of residents suffering from ill health, and decreased educational attainment all from increasing pollution levels.

We all know the biggest stick and carrot an airport can wave at gullible and ill informed councils is the promise of job creation. Oh and isn't that emotive in a borough that has high unemployment levels even when the rest of the country levels had been relatively low!

You see, the poorly skilled elected officials at the London Borough of Newham chose to overlook the previous multitude of broken promises from London City Airport on many issues, including on the job creation front. LB Newham are however rather quick to help LCA on making out that there are more jobs for Newham residents than there actually are - that is how desparate Sir Robin Wales is to not let down his mate and alleged fellow funny hand shaker! You can read about the lies and broken promises about jobs here and here.

But using jobs as bait in a bid to get harmful aviation expansion approved is not unique to London City Airport. We cordially invite you to read an excellent piece of work recently written by Brendon Sewell: Airport Jobs: False Hopes, Cruel Hoax.

It doesn't have London City Airports data but that is probably because job statistics from the airport, although legally required under the Section 106 by the LB Newham are like trying to access a document under the official secrets act. A recent FOI request to Newham was rejected because apparently the airport only has this data. We don't think so! We know Newham have this data, but simply don't want to release it because it yet again proves the point that the airport has indeed given false hopes over the years, which have indeed ended up as cruel hoaxes to local residents.

And if you are a resident who believes the likes of that ignoramous Stephen Timms MP and is confident in just how much locals have benefited from 'direct employment' at the airport (not from the guy who grinds the flour, that makes the bread, that ends up in Bewleys bread but whom lives 200 miles away for instance!)as a result of its expansion, we invite you to ask LB Newham for the annual statistics and breakdown of employees by borough, salary ranges, and contract types? It wont make for comfortable reading for you at all.

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?!"

London City Airport Larger Noiser Planes, E-190 Trials Expected Sat 28 March

Remember when London City Airport's disingenous Chief Executive Richard Gooding said there wouldn't be bigger planes at London City Airport?

Never trust him or London City Airport as the LIE whenever they think they can get away with it.

The Embraer E-190 is a bigger plane, and is expected to be operating trials at London City Airport on Saturday so that it can gain certification. This is to replace the RJ-100's and RJ-85's that currently fly in and out of London City Airport for BA and other carriers. The RJ series of plane is also the plane that had the crash landing incident back in Feb 2009 when the front landing gear collapsed from a hard landing. This it seems is not uncommon if you go to You Tube and type in "London City Airport hard landings". These are only the ones that have been filmed, how many more have there been?
The Airbus 318 is the other new larger, noiser Jet that British Airways hope to be using for first class flights to New York at the end of this year.

FIRST CLASS FLIGHTS - FIRST CLASS POLLUTION

If you would like to hear how things will be for east and south east Londoners if the "RUNAWAY" expansion at London City Airport that Sir Robin Wales and his substandard councillors support, at ANY COST, then why not take a trip down to the Royal Docks this Saturday?

Cameras, camcorders and noise readers at the ready......

BA London City Airport First Class Flights In Exchange for First Class Pollution in East London

BA have launched the first look at the new 32-seat aircraft interior cabin layout of the all-business Airbus A318s it will use on transatlantic routes from London City Airport.

"That's our new cabin, that's the London City product that will come on line in the autumn," said Silla Maizey.

Can't say we've noticed that the Civil Aviation Authority have given this jet approval to fly from London City Airport to date - probably because they haven't. Still Silla, an accountant has to try to look on the bright side when the economy is threatening every thread of BA's business.

We note Silla doesn't have to live under a flight path and that her two dogs and cat can breathe air less toxic than a 4 year old has to breathe around Drew Primary School. Lucky her! What is funnier is that Silla is head of BA corporate responsibility. So what do Silla and British Airways say to the children who go to the school which is less then 600 yards from where their polluting planes take off? Or to the highest mortality rates in asthma sufferers under 30 in Newham in the whole of the country? It's all just an inconvenient truth to British Airways no doubt. Or is it as simple as sending the London City Airport Barney the Bear to the class room with a handful of logo'd LCA sweatshirts?

British Airways don't give a stuff about communities affected by their activities, a bit like Richard Gooding of London City Airport and Sir Robin Wales and the Newham elected labour councillors - they do not care that residents are dying premature deaths in London from toxic air pollution, and that children's development is being affected so much so that schools around the airport all have children with above average levels of learning difficulties.

But this plane is for the uber-rich. 32 seats and tickets wont be cheap (unless you are a lucky Newham Councillor who receives free flights from the airport). So who cares about the most socially deprived borough in the country which so far has benefited from just 120 directly employed airport jobs in 20 years of operation of the airport?

As usual BA and LCA are off the mark. Only a few days ago BA cancelled its Dublin route and then admitted it is set to make two years of losses running into several hundred millions of pounds after an unprecedented 20% collapse in passengers travelling in first and business class, the cabins where it makes most of its profit. But of course, apparently they only cancelled the Dublin route due to the crash at the airport and the investigations that continue into the BAE146's that have taken some out for checks. So we'll be expecting to see the British Airways Dublin route re-scheduled as soon as they have all been serviced then, right? We don't think so!

No mention of any cancellations on the London City Airport web of spin, only preferring to announce positive spin. No mention anywhere of the two crashes , route cancellations or Flasher the Angry Swiss Air Pilot.

Even more shocking is the environmental impact that this jet will allegedly have. The Business Travel Research Centre at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom found that the carbon emissions level from first class may be more than double of those of passengers in the economy section.

More harmful pollution over East London and those primary school children just a few minutes walk from the runway - still when there's money to be made - that's nothing to worry about at all in the world of aviation!! It's a small price, especially when it is the state that picks up the bills, and the pieces.

We look forward to seeing how the airport will be spinning this. But maybe its ok - Perhaps Hill And Knowlton are about to help them out seeing as the last few months have been a PR disaster for them.

Slaughter & May Advising London City Airport GIP on Gatwick Bid

The greedy shareholders of London City Airport General Electric, and Credit Suisse of train not plane fame, (they call themselves a consortium: Global Infrastructure Partners) have featured in The Lawyer with regard to their Gatwick bid:

"Global Infrastructure Partners, a consortium made up of GE and Credit Suisse, which already owns London City Airport, is believed to have turned to previous adviser Slaughter and May, led by partner Mark Horton. Clifford Chance is also understood to have a role for that client".

The old pressure pushers for Docklands appear to still be hanging in there.

All we hope is that it costs LCA and GIP a fortune, and they lose the bid. Trebles all round for us on that day!!

With LCA's operational track record of 10 years of failing to meet the most serious of environmental data collection requirements on air and noise, set within their planning agreement, and with flight delays well beyond Heathrows, we couldn't possibly recommend them for Gatwick and inflict them upon our good friends down there. With a CEO who reckons that running an airport is the ''most fun you can have with your clothes on'' , it's just too much to inflict on them, the thought!

Still, the 'lawyers' would have welcomed the instructions in these times of financial austerity! Perhaps Sir Robin Wales might even offer the taxes of Newham residents to assist the London Borough of London City Airport in their quest?

Is Publicis the Next To Help LCA?

Publicis is a marketing and communication company. Apparently they address the ''multicultural process facing industry'' and "recognise the importance of local culture".

Rumour has it they are being recruited....now could it be something to do with the 'racial equality impact study' that Newham failed to ensure was carried out by London City Airport? LCA clearly need a lot of help right now, as they have effectively ignored the needs of the majority of residents affected by their 'activities' when failing to carry out the 'racial equality impact study'

Apparently LCA and Newham are above the Race Relations Act requirement, when it comes to major applications in the Borough of Newham, the most ethnically diverse borough in London. LCA and Newham Council are so focussed on the community that they appear to have written off 3/4s of the local schoolchildren in and around the airport, and a large proportion of Newham residents.But Friends of the Earth have reminded Newham of their obligation...and the planning officer has been made to think about it by the solicitors. Newham have taken legal advice following receipt of the letters from FOE and the planning committee agreed to DEFER a decision in order to give them an opportunity to consider the issue further.

The development committee ACCEPTED this recommendation to DEFER at Wednesday's meeting.

Oh joy....some social justice at last for the people of Newham!

So it's possible there's a bit of marketing and advertising work going in Publicis's way. So best to warn the communities to get ready and hang on to their FACT cards!!

Just remember 'ADVERTISING IS NOT INFORMATION'!

Near misses between London City Airport planes concerns MP

It came to FTF's attention some time ago the amount of 'near misses' (The Civil Aviation Authority call these proximity reports) of aircraft leaving and arriving from London City Airport. This is something that Sir Robin Wales, FC London City Airport Chief Executive Richard Gooding and Hill & Knowlton have clearly avoided addressing when 'pushing through' their quest for more flights over the most densely occupied part of England: despite it being an issue which is of interest and importance to the general public on health and safety grounds.

Never mind the public, just think of the profits to be made!!

Thankfully, we still have freedom of information, freedom of speech, and some of the press excercise their freedom to report, unlike some of the other publications who only 'advertise' for the airport whilst denying residents the facts and the risks that are overhead. So read on for an excellent piece of factual and informative reporting from the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian. We of course commend Harry Cohen MP for speaking of his concern on such important safety issues in the interest of his constituents - it's more than Stephen Timms has done for his! Hoorah, a good example of local reporting in the interests of the community, and at it's very best! It's just a shame Newham residents, are not as blessed.

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wfnews/4009243.WALTHAM_FOREST___REDBRIDGE__Near_misses_between_planes_concerns_MP/

WALTHAM FOREST / REDBRIDGE:
10:41am Tuesday 30th December 2008

By Daniel Binns »

THERE have been nine ‘near misses’ between planes flying to and from London City Airport in the skies above north east London over the past five years, the Guardian can reveal.
In one case, two aircraft came within half a mile of each other during one misunderstanding, while in another incident a pilot “became distracted” and soared beyond his plane’s authorised height.

Harry Cohen, MP for Leyton & Wanstead, is so concerned about the number of near misses that he plans to contact the Secretary of State for Transport Geoff Hoon.
He said: "There are so many planes flying over my constituency it is amazing that there hasn't been a crash.

"I think the Government needs to look at the expansion of airports and the affect it has on the environment."

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) told the Guardian there was “no risk” of a collision in any of the cases, which all happened within 50 nautical miles of the airport at heights of 3,000ft or lower.

But anti-airport expansion campaigners expressed scepticism at the claims.
Anne-Marie Griffin, of the Fight the Flights Group, said: “It’s a matter of how much you believe what a Government agency tells you. If there was a risk of a crash, they clearly won’t say anything which might cause panic. “Any increase in the number of flights will definitely increase the risk of a crash. “It doesn’t matter even if there was just one possibility of a crash in this timespan, the effect of a plane coming down over London would be phenomenal.”

The worries come as proposals are currently being considered to change the flightpath of City Airport planes, which could see an extra 83 planes flying over the skies of Wanstead, Leyton and Leytonstone at less than 3,000ft every day, according to air traffic management company NATS.

The cases, known as ‘Airprox’ incidents, are recorded when the distance between aircraft "have been such that the safety of the aircraft involved was or may have been compromised.”
A spokesman from the CAA said: “Despite large year on year increases in the number of flights operated by UK airlines, the rate of Airprox incidents has decreased significantly in the period 1998-2007.”

London City Airport was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.

Building 1000 Costs Public Over Two Million A Year

It couldn't get worse for the residents of Newham under the chaotic, disorganised and autocratic leadership of Newham Council. Building 1000 is a subject we've covered before. It is an office block built alongside the Royal Docks by London City Airport. It remained empty for years - obviously the airport had created such huge property and environmental blight on the building that nobody wanted to experience the delights of working in the area, let alone live in the area. Building 1000 momentarily had some use in it's years of sitting empty: it once appeared in a Post Office advert (now that's like a kiss of death) - and in 'Spooks'. It was noted that on each occasion the takes did not include aircraft landing and taking off in the background. They'd have had to do a voice over if so as the excessive noise levels of jets in the area would have stopped all recording.

But don't worry - Newham appears to have come to the rescue of Building 1000, and was happy to sacrifice an alledged 600 council jobs for the pleasure. But it gets worse: Newham appear to have seen fit to moving some of their staff into the blighted building, and you'd expect it to be good value being that nobody else wanted to move into it because of the environmental conditions surrounding it, wouldn't you? Oh no, Newham doesn't do 'economical' when it comes to trying to save face and appears to want to hide and deny that the whole of the area around the airport for a good few miles or so, is so blighted that few want to live or work there - except those connected to the airport- all couple of hundred of them. Clearly Building 1000 laying empty was an embarassment to Newham and their claims that the airport regenerates, when in fact, ummm it appears to stifle and stop regeneration in many ways.

A freedom of information request has revealed the staggering running costs for Building 1000 from 1st April 2008 to 30th November:

• Rates £993,300
• Insurance £85,379
• Cleaning £2,227
• Management Fee £1,171,053 *
  
  *This is the cost of the building management and facilities management contract which
  includes security costs

But of course, don't forget, the airport apparently doesn't cause property blight at all, even though other airports such as Stansted and Heathrow do on homes and businesses that are not connected to the aviation industry. It seems that London City Airport costs Newham Residents more than meets the eye, you can now add property blight to the list of 'bills'. Add this to all the security costs at the airport which London taxpayers pay in whole, and which Newham doesn't think that London City Airport should pay, and you'd be forgiven for feeling that this airport is continuously propped up by the public purse. In more ways than one. It seems that the airport not only relies on the public purse to run, it also severely stifles job growth in east London... and a healthy environment.

British Airways Can't Do The Maths

British Airways Press Release (see below)just further misleads the residents of East London and beyond, and those who care about the environment.

Now lets make the article they have released CLEARER to the press and RESIDENTS.

1.British Airways DON'T say that they are YET to receive approval from the Civil Aviation Authority to fly the polluting jets out of London City Airport. The Jets HAVE to meet noise restrictions and we have not seen any notification from the CAA that they have approved the jets operation.

2. BA's Peter Simpson claims the new Embraer is helping them to meet 'environmental objectives'. This is utter NONSENSE when BA are INCREASING flights.

BA claim that the Embraer will improve C02 emissions by UP TO 56%. The trouble is that London City Airport has had a 50% increase in the amount of flights approved by Newham Council - despite the appalling environmental effects on East Londoners.

So lets do the maths:

Apart from the fact that the jets will contribute to excessive noise pollution for 100,000s of residents in the middle of the most densely occupied area of the Country consider:

that a 50% increase in flight expansion out of London City Airport has been approved, this will result in 120,000 flights a year in a RESIDENTIAL AREA, no doubt many of them British Airways' own.

So 50% extra flights of bigger, noisy jets versus UP TO 56% CLAIMED reduction in CO2 emissions...

Hmmm allegedly the maths indicate that this works out at about NO DIFFERENCE in C02 emissions over East London! Isn't it just another case of GREENWASH? For British Airways to make any difference (reduce) in their emissions from London City Airport, they would need to maintain the level of flights they have had in the past at the airport - not increase them, new jets or not.

_______________________________________________________________________________

British Airways has placed firm orders for a fleet of 11 new generation fuel efficient aircraft that will offer passengers unrivalled levels of space and comfort on board.

The airline's wholly owned subsidiary BA CityFlyer is to take delivery of the first of its new Embraer aircraft, which will fly exclusively from London City Airport, from September 2009. ........

London City Airport Expansion Objectors Protest

See the Protest held and LB Newham Town Hall in October.
CLICK HERE and play Video Article on LCA Expansion.

Newham & LCA Keep it in 'the family' - UPDATE - Cllr Alec Kellaway Looks After His Interests

Click on the image to enlarge.

When Cllr Alec Kellaway wrote in to support London City Airport's growth - he strangely omitted to say that he owned over £25K of shares in WPP.

WPP is a subsidiary of Hill & Knowlton - the PR alledged mercenaries - who have reportedly been paid a six figure sum - to 'push the application through' by London City Airport.

We feel a Standards Board complaint coming on.

Now just fancy that!

Coming Soon - Boris Johnson Rewards Goodings Failure

It's Simply a Rule of Thumb and, Do 406 Employees Make LCA a Major Employer in Newham?

Yet more evidence on just how much deception and collusion is going on between the aviation industry and government.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4364216.ece

It is no surprise for those residents in East and South East London who are affected by London City Airport operations and whom are concerned at the possiblity of further flight expansion. They've been finding out lots of dirty secrets over the past 9 months.

Compare the Times article with:

1. London City Airport failed to take any accurate noise readings of it's departing aircraft for 7 years - despite the amount of planes being allowed to operate being based on a noise factored movement.

2.This means that London City Airport could have been allowing more noise factored movements than permitted in the Section 106 agreement.

3. Noise levels from individual craft at London City Airport could have exceeded beyond those set out in the Section 106 agreement to the detriment of the health and well being of local residents. This means that there are no accurate noise readings or noise contour maps for the whole of the areas around the airport. No evidence is available to ensure that the airport has/is not exceeding the agreed noise limits or that homes have received the noise mitigation that they are entitled to.

4. LB Newham have failed to take any action in 7 years which ensured that London City Airport carried out regular and reliable noise data collection.

5. London City Airport, in its current application, has based it's case for flight expansion on estimated, unreliable noise and environmental data - purely because their methods of monitoring on site have failed consistently due to a lack of their committment to the requirements of the last planning application. Spot any parallels with the Heathrow Consultation debacle?

6. It appears that The Department for Transport has happily accepted 'estimated' noise data from London City Airport for 6 years as part of the EU directive requirement for all airports to provide annual data on noise contours. Did they never question why it was estimated, and not real, and the reason behind this, not even once?

7. Stephen Timms, MP for Newham supports expansion on the basis of adequate environmental measures and noise mitigation being implemented. He has failed to ensure that the environmental and noise measurements have been carried out, in his borough, for 7 years, where has he been? He has clearly not raised this as a concern with the LB of Newham, nor with the airport and continues to neglect to mention this in his articles. What confidence can residents have in him in ensuring the airport will meet future obligations, if they have failed consistently in the past, with no challenge from the authorities?

8. Job Growth - lies, lies and more lies. We all know that the job figures from London City Airport are a closely guarded secret, particularly the amount of Newham residents who are employed. Why? Because the figures are not as LCA promote, sorry, spin, them to be, and they are not flattering to them at all. It's something about 'burying bad news'.

Insiders inform us that they are not at all happy with what they feel is the ''purposeful deception of the community into the belief that there has been or will be so many extra jobs at London City Airport'' . The LB Newham is supposed to collect annual job data from LCA - it appears that this had not occured if we are to take the word of LCA's Richard Gooding in a letter to Stephen Timms MP.

In addition Stephen Timms claims that the airport has "created 2000 jobs". What he doesn't tell you is how he calculated this figure - we believe he has added on the jobs in the local hotels and other neighbouring businesses (courtesy of the information being passed over from the LCA spin machine no doubt), even cab drivers- but how could he possibly isolate all these jobs outside of the airport as a direct result of the airport activities - and not the Excel Centre, or tourists looking for the best value hotel room in London?

LCA customer profiles indicate that the majority of their users earn on average over £86,000 per annum. It seems more likely that they perhaps would consider the Four Seasons Hotel in Docklands, or one of an equal standard in zone 1, over the lower star chains stituated by the airport, which suffer from up to 87db noise levels in the areas around them.

In fact the airport directly employs just 406 employees - as stated in a letter to Stephen Timms MP. The airport could not indicate how many of those 406 staff were part time.

Apparently, according to Stephen, the employment of 406 staff, none of whom could be identified as Newham residents by LCA at the time that the letter was written, nor of how many are part time makes LCA a 'major employer' in Newham. How's that? We think he is getting confused with THE major employer - Newham Council or perhaps Tate and Lyle?

The airport therefore does not employ 2000 people directly - and the use of the sentence 'created 2000 jobs' by Stephen Timms does nothing more than purposely continue to mislead the communities into reading that 2000 LCA jobs have been created - which they have not. Still, perhaps he is just following the precedent set by the Heathrow example.

It all smacks of collusion, maladministration and a purposeful deception of the communities for the purpose of big business getting its way, at any cost.

Residents have been let down and misled - it's time to make all these individuals accountable. Expansion cannot be based on estimates of noise and pollution, and the shocking lack of committment of the airport and the local council to ensure that conditions are met can only lead the majority to have a vote of 'no confidence' in them.

When most people do a bad job, fail to meet targets, requirements etc they usually get penalised for that - that's of course only if they haven't made lots of money for big business by failing to adminster the requirements. The making of money, and of looking after one's own career, of course supercedes all the other failures.

London City Airport "in cloud cuckoo land" Says Senior Analyst

Howard Wheeldon, analyst at BGC Partners LP in London comments that expansion at London City Airport should be no more than 20% and referred to LCA being in ' cloud cuckoo land' with the expansion levels planned.

In an interview on Bloomberg UK, Fight the Flights spokesperson, Anne-Marie Griffin puts the noise and health issues which will affect at least another 40,000 residents, at the top of the objection points, whilst Richard Gooding, CEO of LCA comments to the effect that 'some (residents) will complain at any planes over them, even 'quiet' ones'. Well that just about tells you, the communities, who dare to object to the threat of flights expanding to 176,000 in the future, measuring noise levels of 82db+ flying over every 90 seconds, for hours on end, that you are just a moaning lot of whingers, who are standing in the way of him making a lot of money for his shareholders (Credit Suisse, GE, AIG)! How very unreasonable of you all to object!!! But in all seriousness, it is very predictable that the word 'quiet and planes' should be used together from someone connected to the aviation industry - see our previous posting!

The PR is still not going that well at all down in the LCA camp, unless they are actually intending to provide lessons on how to alienate a whole community and the words of warning from the business sector too - oh dear! We guess they had to change their responses from those offered in the past, especially as Mr Gooding was getting confused on those claims he made to the community that "it's not going to get any noisier" and various other flippant comments such as the varying amount of 'estimated jobs' which will more than make up for any environmental damage or any other negative effects!!Not a strong argument at all.

We think they need a few 'lifejacket' responses to questions from now on as they are clearly cornered: the negatives are so many and the positives....well there's just one really, and that won't benefit the communities at all: expansion will simply make a lot of money for the shareholders.

As well as watching the feature on Bloomberg web video - you can also read an excellent news article written by Thomas Penny on Bloomberg by clicking here.

Why are Londoners paying £7m (100%) of LCA's Security Costs?

Well it's a mystery to us how any private, share owned business could get away with NOT paying their own security costs and then having the cheek to pass these on to the communities that they operate in!

London City Airport costs us London tax payers a whopping £7 million for it's annual security, and surprise, surprise it doesn't want to pay a penny towards it.

Now we are clearly very concerned about the security and the safety of it's travelling passengers and of the communities around the airport - but should Londoners be expected to pay this whilst LCA pass the profits on to their share holders: Credit Suisse, GE and AIG? And we are not alone in our amazement at LCA's complete lack of willingness to shoulder even a percentage of their security costs........at the GLA the following question was asked by Len Duval, Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority:

Question number 0043/2007 Meeting date 10/10/2007

Question by Len Duvall I am not asking you to comment on the planning application; it is more about the commercial engagement with London City Airport . Are you aware that London City Airport provides no cost towards the security of its perimeters and, in a sense, that we and part of the GLA family are subsidising them? Before you enter into commercial agreements with London City Airport or give any undertaking that security, the primacy of security around our airports and users of airports comes first and therefore that they should not be subsidised by London taxpayers, they should make a contribution like other airports; even Heathrow are cooperating in that. There seems to be a real problem with London City Airport ; they do not seem to want to even engage in a conversation about costs and they are quite adamant they are not going to pay it. Do you see that as being a part of a discussion that you may wish to have to them before you exercise any commercial deal?

Answer by Manny Lewis, LDA Given that you have raised it, Len , absolutely, in terms of the Metropolitan Police Service position. I am not familiar with those security issues; you have alerted us to those. We need to follow those up both with the Metropolitan Police Service as well as with TfL and we will certainly now factor that in.

Say's it all about LCA really. We should add that Fight the Flights has asked LCA if they intend to contribute to the cost of security, or even pay for it in full in respect of their planned expansion, which will clearly increase the £7m bill as more security will be required. We are still waiting for a response.

Now what was LCA's Chief Exec Richard Gooding saying about how much LCA give to the community?? It seems that they take out far more than they put in.

Funds for dealing with crime are always short - perhaps this £7m would be better spent on the crime that's affecting London communities right now - youth crime . We are sure that the Metropolitan Police Service would be more than pleased to get £7m back for services provided to a profit making, private business so as to enable them to tackle the difficult job of policing London.

If there are any businesses out there who don't get £7m security a year and feel discriminated against then please send requests for tips on how to get such brilliant perks to:


well, you know who....