Scratching the Surface of Air Quality At London City Airport

The cat naughtily scratched the wall last night, missing his scratchpost by a few inches. He got a good telling off today. Sometimes rules just have to be followed and if you don't follow them, well you have to have the courage of your convictions and face the music.

However our friends at London City Airport seem incapable of facing the music without yet more spin, smoke and mirrors.

A few months ago the GMB workers union submitted a formal complaint to the Health and Safety Executive about the air quality in the airport terminal. This, allegedly was after many attempts by the union to see the air quality measurements from the airport. LCY apparently, and perhaps predictably declined to share the data according to the GMB:

London City Airport did hire monitoring equipment, which they located under air conditioning vents and operated themselves. The GMB has been denied access to the results and has serious doubts about this ‘in house’ monitoring and the lack of any independent control. As such any results from this exercise must be considered flawed.

Stephanie Attwood., GMB Organiser said, “GMB members working in the arrivals area report that the fumes get so bad that they experience signs of poisoning exposure such as: dry mouth, nose and throat, sore, itchy eyes, headaches and breathing difficulties. GMB Members working in this area have to vacate the room on a daily basis in order to escape having to breathe in the toxic air. Members of the travelling public who land at London City Airport have to use this area too as will competitors and visitors to the Olympics.

GMB is amazed at London City Airport’s refusal to agree to full independent monitoring to this potentially dangerous situation. If they had nothing to hide they would have done exactly that to reassure the travelling public. But no, instead they have botched up an in-house, off the cuff stab at monitoring that no one is allowed to the see the result of.

The reality of the situation is that London City Airport has chosen to sacrifice the health of their passengers and staff in order to line their pockets with high levels of profit. It is time for the airport to get real and clean up the situation finally putting their passengers’ and staff’s health first.”

Unfortunately FTF were not 'amazed' at all. After 8 years of the airport failing to carry out reliable noise and air readings, (all the readings in the expansion application were based on ESTIMATES because they had no data that they could use for the past 8 years!) it was not a surprise at all.

The HSE to our knowledge have yet to publish the report from their investigation, but you can't help but wonder why in that case, London City Airport has now decided to PAY Green Air Monitoring to come up with some data for them. No data is publicly available so far, but a certificate is, how wonderful! At least the staff member and passengers can perhaps check that out as their passing through, if it is displayed. Whether it gives them reassurance, or gets rid of the symptoms that the GMB describes is another story. Particularly if they knew what was outside the walls.

The data, apparently has given the airport a clean bill of health...but the 'press release' fails to mention the Health and Safety Executive report, or investigation which we assume to be ongoing. We all know that if HSE also find LCY having 'Green Air' inside the terminal, the spokesperson will suddenly be named, and the Newham Recorder will go into overdrive to report it. Incidently the Newham Recorder is going gung ho to report on the LCY paid consultants Green Air report this week. Just funny how the Newham Recorder FAILED to pick up on the story when the GMB press released it back in June. So keeping out the negatives is still priority there then!

Profits before people reign in East London, and it's quite clear where LCY's priorities lay.

Worse still is if we look beyond the walls of the airport terminal, that is where there is hard evidence that air quality is dangerous and in breach of EU regulations. We've written about that before and you can read it all here. But in addition don't forget the paid LCY consultant Dr Maggs. He seemed to think it was fine that flight expansion would push the air pollution ever further over the EU recommended levels. Bet he doesn't live in East London.

Amazing what you can buy today! Sadly, it's just a scratch at the surface of the issue of toxic air linked to London City Airport.

City Airport protester gets her moment on Trafalgar Sq plinth

"A WOMAN taking a local authority in East London to the Ombudsman over aircraft noise at London City Airport had her big moment last night when she took centre stage on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth.

Campaigning artist Jacqueline Bradshaw-Price, who runs a fine arts and restoration studio at Old Ford, used her 60 minutes of fame to highlight the issue of airport expansion.

“Someone in the crowd suggested I move,” Jacqueline told the East London Advertiser when she got down afterwards.

“But why should I move? If I went elsewhere, the person moving in after me would have the same noise problem all over again.”

OMBUDSMAN

Jacqueline is taking Newham Council to the Ombudsman over City Airport being allowed to expand to double the flights.

Not all the spectators were taking her campaign seriously.

“A few drunks turned up and asked if I was taking my clothes off,” Jacqueline added. “I said ‘certainly not!’ and they drifted off quickly.”

The campaign is a passion with Jacqueline, but she also found time to sketch a fewpeople in the crowd before the ‘cherry picker’ came to pick her off at midnight.
“It was an amazing experience,” she said. “There was even a full moon beaming down.”

FULL ARTICLE HERE

WANSTEAD: Lib Dem group to launch anti-flights campaign

"THE Wanstead Liberal Democrat group is to launch a campaign against an increase in flights from London City Airport.

The move comes after Newham Council agreed to allow an extra 50,000 plane journeys from the airport, bringing its annual flight total to 120,000.

Residents have inundated the Guardian in the past few weeks worried about noise and pollution from extra planes and changed flightpaths from Heathrow and City airport, which is less than five miles from the borough.

Lib Dem activist Kate Garrett said her group would work with apolitical campaign group Fight the Flights to leaflet residents in Wanstead and Leyton, and were hoping to organise a public meeting in the borough next month.

She said: "It seems, from listening to Fight the Flights, that there is a good case for fighting this expansion due to the procedural failings of Newham Council when granting its permission."

Conservative MP Lee Scott and Labour MP Harry Cohen have both also previously expressed concern over the issue.

A spokeswoman for Newham Council said: “Following an extensive consultation process, which included a significant amount of input from members of the public, we are confident that this decision is in the best interest of the communities of Newham."

A spokeswoman for City Airport said the allowance of extra flights by the council showed “the airport's importance in the community, its significant contribution to the local economy and the regeneration and investment that the airport has attracted to east London."

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Lord Adonis plans to ground short haul flights with rail

Lord Adonis is delivering rather a lot of sense and good news to those of us who are concerned and have to live with the effect of unfettered flight expansion at any cost.

The push for high speed trains to stop the nonsense of the ridiculous and harmful expansion of short haul flights can only be good. Not only that, it will deliver sustainable jobs in the infrastructure required, and the running of the services. And the down side? Well it's hard to see any.

One of our residents tells us they lived by a busy railway line for over 20 years - but that it by no way compared to London City Airport jets, or the general disruptive noise that expanding aviation inflicts on communities.Harmful emissions? Well trains have a few, but they are nowhere near the levels that aviation omit, nor do they require anywhere near the amounts of energy that aircraft require to operate in a world that's oil is just not going to last. A high speed rail network compareable to France's TGV is clearly the answer.

So while London City Airport and other airports and airlines who rely on damaging short haul flights to line their pockets say boo hoo, and throw their toys out of the pram to this news: we say thank you Lord Adonis - you have recognised what others have failed to see for too long.


_________________________________________________________________
Article in todays Guardian online:

Government unveils high-speed rail plan to ground short flights
Replacing plane journeys with ultra-fast train services 'manifestly in the public interest', transport secretary says

Dan Milmo and Julian Glover guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday 4 August 2009 19.22 BST Article history

Andrew Adonis: High-speed rail travel is possible in the UK Link to this video.

The government has made the demise of domestic air travel an explicit policy target for the first time by aiming to replace short-haul flights with a new 250mph high-speed rail network.

The transport secretary, Lord Adonis, said switching 46 million domestic air passengers a year to a multibillion-pound north-south rail line was "manifestly in the public interest". Marking a government shift against aviation, Adonis added that rail journeys should be preferred to plane trips.

"For reasons of carbon reduction and wider environmental benefits, it is manifestly in the public interest that we systematically replace short-haul aviation with high-speed rail. But we would have to have, of course, the high-speed network before we can do it," he said.

In an interview with the Guardian to launch a three-day special report on high-speed rail, Adonis revealed that plans for a new generation of ultra-fast train services are well advanced. They include:

• The publication by the end of the year of a route from London to Birmingham, including the framework to extend the line northward to Scotland.

• Building cross-party support for the network, which could see a line to the West Midlands built by 2020.

• Running high-speed trains on the existing network, which could reduce journey times from London to Scotland to three and a half hours.

• Possibly funding the £7bn London-to-Birmingham line with a public-private partnership.

Adonis said domestic and European flights to and from the UK, which carry 169 million passengers on 1.9m trips a year, should be "progressively replaced" by a high-speed rail network that will relieve congestion on existing lines and shorten train journey times across the UK.

Flights to north-west Europe are the most realistic target, after airline sources warned that further-flung destinations such as Madrid or Prague are still expected to be dominated by air travel. Short-haul flights are the most popular journey in British aviation, accounting for seven out of 10 flights. But train travel is also popular in the UK –the British public already make 1.3bn passenger rail journeys each year – so Adonis hopes it will make a serious dent in the use of short-haul air travel.

"I would like to see short-haul aviation – not just domestic aviation, but short-haul aviation – progressively replaced by rail, including high-speed rail," Adonis said. "If we want to see [this] progressive replacement … then we have got to have a high-speed rail system that links our major conurbations and makes them far more accessible to Europe, too."

The government has pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050, prompting ministers to push for use of electric cars and more investment in cycle routes. Against that backdrop, Adonis said rail should take priority over air travel.

Last night the British Air Transport Association (Bata), whose members include British Airways, Flybe and BMI – all carriers with domestic operations – said the government would not be able to eliminate flights within the UK altogether.

Roger Wiltshire, Bata secretary general, said there were still flights from the UK to Paris and Brussels despite the high-speed Eurostar service. "There are high-speed networks in France, Germany and Japan but they still have domestic air routes between their major cities. It does not have to be a question of one or the other."

Adonis's comments were welcomed by campaigners who, earlier this year, berated the government for backing a third runway at Heathrow. Richard Hebditch, campaigns director at the Campaign for Better Transport, said: "It does not make sense to be flying short distances if there is a direct rail alternative. This clearly marks a major shift away from previous government policy and the government now needs to revisit its decision on Heathrow."

However, Adonis said a high-speed rail scheme would not undermine an aviation policy that calls for new runways at Stansted and Heathrow over the next decade.

"If you look at projections for long-haul air demand the third runway just on long- haul demand alone is justified," he said. According to government estimates, air passenger numbers will nearly double to 465 million a year by 2030.

A high-speed line will have to be the UK's main infrastructure project if it is to go ahead. "If we make it a national priority, then it is affordable. If we don't, then it is not. It's as simple as that," Adonis said. He has established a company to draw up plans, to be submitted to the Department for Transport later this year.

Take the City Block - It'll offer more protection than Boris

Whilst Boris Johnson continues to wax lyrical about being green with yet another new initiative (which clearly will have some good merits) whilst supporting London City Airport flight expansion, (and a further breach of EU air quality levels) it makes you wonder just how far politicians like Boris will go in pretending to have green policies.

So Mayor Boris makes £4million available for his new eco-innovation fund - whilst London City Airports security costs of £5.5million a year continue to be paid by the London taxpayer. Why not add another £5.5 million to the 'eco innovation fund' Boris, and make the privately owned, but publically subsidised London City Airport pay their own bills for a change?

It just doesn't add up, the money, or Boris's perpetual spin about being concerned about improving Londoner's quality of lives and their environment.

What we need is protection and this would be welcome in the form of a London Mayor who listens to the residents and defends communities quality of lives, not his friends in big business. But at least Boris has appeared to have discovered that jobs can be created by being greener in business, it's just a shame he didn't think about that when he used jobs as his excuse for supporting LCY expansion, which was by no means a good move for the communities or environment.

As far as Boris goes, we can't help but feel that the tube of cream that one of our residents bought from a cosmetics counter, with a 40SPF factor offering 'ultra protection' is likely to offer more benefit, to the average member of the public in East and South East London, than Boris is anywhere near as likely to offer.

The product boasts "hours of protection from environmental aggressors". Oh yes, that's just what we need plenty of in East London, protection from 'environmental aggressors'. Could we stretch the hours to days, weeks or years though?

But just how many tubes of this product would protect us from the 'agressors' of our environment, London City Airport, LB Newham and Boris Johnson, Mayor of London? There's so many of them, all of them guilty of greenwashing spin whilst supporting the continued growth of environmental pollution in East London.

Tubes to the ready. Subsidies for the cost of the product protection- up to £5.5 million annually are expected to be offered by our revered government to continue to appease the aviation industry and make residents think they might actually be taking their concerns seriously for once.