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.

Newham Council/LCA - The Section 106 And The Shame of It All

Fight the Flights is waiting for a response from Newham Council with regard to London City Airport failing to follow the Section 106 Agreement with regard to providing accurate and actual noise data for the past 7 years. As you will recall, London City Airport have failed in monitoring the actual noise levels for all those years and it is those levels which should also be used for noise contour maps and for the classification of aircraft to enable the correct amount of noise factored movements to take place. This is why no actual data is submitted with the application to expand - only estimates.

Newham Council is responsible for making sure that the Section 106 Agreement is adhered to, and clearly in 7 years they have not based on our current knowledge. How long can it take to resolve an issue with noise monitoring......in Newham...more than 7 years - that has to be a record and a real bonus for London City Airport operations.

However we await Newham's response and will consider the legal position when it is received. We currently feel that Newham Council has been negligent in their position to ensure the health and safety of residents and of maladministration of the section 106 agreement enforcement. But we are getting a good picture of how the LB of Newham behaves towards residents from looking at a variety of planning applications which are all equally as controversial in how: consultations have been carried out and also of the lack of enforcement of conditions and obligations in the Section 106s.....hardly a case of lead by example.

And where we ask are all the local councillors in this....heads buried in the sand? It is actually quite shameful that none of them appear to have raised the lack of noise monitoring at the airport in 7 whole years. Scandalous. It's the residents that voted them in so you'd think the local councillors would be in touch enough to address such important issues which affect the health and safety of their constituents. But still they can also be voted out. However if any of the local councillors can provide us with any information indicating that they have addressed this issue, and have fought for and represented the health and welfare of the residents in the areas affected, we would be more than happy to put a posting on to indicate that.