More Residents Ask Questions About 'Mystery' Consultation

One of our campaigners in the Wanstead area has informed us of an article in their local paper: it seems that more residents are only just finding out about the expansion application (all thanks to Newham's disastrous attempt at what they pretended was a consultation), and are not happy at all.

So more objectors.....oh dear - it just wasn't what LCA and Newham planned for at all! I bet their wishing for the 'good old days' now.

At least Newham Council appears to have one less thing to worry about now though: The private keystone cops - the inspiration of Sir Robin Wales, are due to be disbanded (due to their constant gaffs) and replaced with some good old PCSO's according to Private Eye. That will be a relief for the local Met. If only something as drastic could happen with Newham's planning department.....

Where's Our Democracy Newham Council?

The very reason why Fight the Flights got together was because local democracy had been thrown out of the window by Newham, not once, but twice in relation to London City Airports cloud cuckoo land applications.

Thousands of residents across the boroughs, who are going to be affected by increasingly loud levels of noise and pollution, by the proposed expansion of flights at London City Airport have NOT been consulted by Newham Planning on the latest application, nor the application that was approved in January 2007.

Noise management by LCA WILL NOT address the majority of households which will suffer from increased noise levels, and it means nothing more than sealing you into your own homes - with the added running costs of mechanical ventilation.

Newham Council must have thought it nothing more than an inconvenience to have to consult with us ALL, so they just didn't bother. Perhaps they had already made their minds up and didn't see the point in consulting? Who knows.

So we find ourselves sharing some similarities with the core of the argument over the Heathrow farcical consultation and the one handed out by Newham. Frustrated about Newham ignoring your right to a democratic process and ignoring you? It adds to the communities complete sense of alienation and feeling that the processes are so unjust, not just in Newham but also in the neighbouring boroughs where Newham spectacularly ignored thousands of thousands of residents.

Plane Stupid were frustrated about the lack of democracy and how people who had been so called 'consulted' regarding Heathrow had been misled and given documents they couldn't understand - here's what they feel they have been pushed to do to get their and thousands of other people's voices heard.

It's a sad state of political affairs that our democracy is being eroded in this way by paid public servants who should know better.

Newham Council - Flouting the law in the face of neighbouring boroughs

We reported earlier this week, the good news that our resident campaigners in Thamesmead Moorings, Greenwich had finally received consultation letters from Newham Council Planning Department. This was following months of campaigners and other organisations putting pressure on Greenwich Council, Newham and various other decision makers regarding not being consulted on the expansion application (Greenwich was saying it wasn't their job to consult, and Newham was taking the same line).

We followed this news up by asking Newham Council if they were also going to write to residents in the other neighbouring boroughs, because as you know we are a coalition across the boroughs,Greenwich being just one of them.

Sadly Newham still intend to flout the Town and Country Planning Order (General Development Procedure) 1995 .

A Newham spokesperson stated that:
"We are not consulting other borough residents in the same way, the decision was made to directly consult the residents of Thamesmead following the receipt after christmas of the additional information that Newham Council had requested from the applicants".

So that's alright then.

Perhaps the neighbouring borough council's and residents may wish to take issue with Newham over that! Fight the Flights will of course be working hard on this issue too. Democracy and Town and Country Legislation is clearly not the order of the day in Newham Council. Will Sir Robin Wales stand up and explain exactly why that is, or perhaps others would like to ask him?

UPDATE: We have been politely asked to remove Sir Robin's photograph by the Head of Communications at Newham Council, it seems that Sir Robin is rather shy for a public figure, and we would not wish to embarrass him in any way.


But we are glad at least that Newham are reading this blog - Sir Robin might now make time to reply to the residents who have contacted him in the past few months but are still waiting for a response from him regarding the LCA application/consultation. We're an optimistic bunch at Fight the Flights, we believe this is just an administrative error at the Mayor's office which will soon be resolved.