More LIES and SPIN From H&K Hopeful

Our LCA mole kindly scanned in the latest SPIN from the airport not known for it's honesty: London City Airport.

The airport employee featured who regularly explains complaints from residents (from across the boroughs) away with the excuse of: "they are not LCA planes, they are Heathrow planes" has gone public in the 'low fare regional airlines' November publication.

She seems to be in denial about the 2000 + residents who expressed their objection of the airport expanding....in contrast to the 'few' who wrote letters of support in favour. Let's just remind ourselves: just over 300 letters in support of expansion were received by Newham - all but a few of them were from aviation and business.

But still the Hill & Knowlton hopeful kids herself that the airport has a 'great relationship' with the community.' Funny, we sense a real hostility to the airport in the communities which we work with - not because the airport is there, but because of the broken promises and the way the airport treat the community.

We'd like to see her be brave enough to hand deliver her 'runway news' and knock on a few doors, asking residents how they feel about the expansion, increasing noise levels, smell of kerosene, and explain why they have been waiting for noise insulation for 8 years and more. She might like to ask whether there are any ashtma sufferers in the households too...

We're not sure she'd get back to the airport in one piece emotionally. Still, if she is confident enough that the community loves and trusts the airport, and they have had such a good relationship - then no doubt she will be knocking on the doors of those most affected in the next few weeks......yeah right.

You can see the full spin article by the airport uploaded on our website. Go to Latest Headlines

LB Newham Building 1000 costs 600 jobs

This is an article from Unison Newham posted in April 2008. At a time that LB Newham & Sir Robin Wales justify inflicting an additional 46,000 residents to excessive noise levels on the basis of job creation, that never seem to appear. It seems that jobs are being lost due to the expansion of London City Airport. This building is situated right beside LCA's Runway and no private businesses wanted to move in due to the noise and pollution from the airport. Not an ideal place to live or work it seems and could explain why it remained empty for so many years.
Here's an example of how the airport stops employment coming to the area.

"Newham Council is sacking over 600 of its own workers and one of the reasons is to pay for its new headquarters in the Royal Docks. Building 1000 is costing Newham Council £75 million to buy and a further £20 million to refurbish. The money for this white elephant is being found by making over 600 loyal employees redundant.

At the same time as cutting hundreds of jobs the Council intends to carry on spending £millions on lavishly paid consultants who contribute little or nothing to Council services. In the last 12 months over £16 million has been wasted this way and this figure is likely to rise in 2008/9.

Shocked trade union officials were given the news of mass redundancies at a meeting with the Council’s Acting Chief Executive, Chris Wood, on Friday afternoon, 28th March.

Irene Stacey, Branch Secretary of Newham UNISON said:

“I am appalled by the Council’s decision to sack over 600 workers. This will as come as devastating news to hundreds of loyal staff and their families. There can be no justification for this policy of mass redundancies. Newham Council is showing itself to be callous and incompetent – callous because it doesn’t care about livelihoods of hundreds of loyal and dedicated staff; incompetent because of its ill-conceived decision to purchase a building it doesn’t need and can’t afford.”

UNISON has no intention of letting the Council get away with its policy of mass sackings. We will be calling meetings of all the sections affected and an emergency branch meeting to thrash out plans to defend every job. Our Branch Secretary is writing to all the other trade unions in the Council calling for a united stand against the Council’s plans – including, if necessary, strike action."

For more information contact Newham UNISON on
020 8555 9351

City Airport Security: Costs Taxpayers £24 Million since 2004

As seen on the Newham Recorder website: City Airport costs to London Taxpayers, yet more freeloading by London City airport:

THE Metropolitan Police Service has spent £24 million policing London City Airport in Silvertown over the past five years, it has emerged.

The figure came to light after London Assembly Green Party member Jenny Jones tabled a question on the cost. Mayor of London Boris Johnson's written response detailed the money spent on policing in each of the last five financial years.

In 2004/05 it was £2 million, £5.5 million in 2005/06, £5.3 million in 2006/07, £5.5 million in 2007/08 and £5.6 million for the current financial year.

However, these figures seem relatively small when compared to the amount the MPS spends on policing Heathrow. Over the last five years the force has spent £196 million on the west London airport, with a £43.4 million outlay in the current financial year.

But, unlike London City Airport, [LCA let taxpayers pay 100% of their security costs] the MPS recovers around 70 per cent of what it spends every year from Heathrow.

Full story by Larry Ferguson in this week's Recorder

Below is the cost to all tax payers for Heathrow & London City Airport

HEATHROW

Passengers 68,066,028

Security £43,400,000

Minus Rebate 70% £30,380,000

Total Taxpayer Cost - £13,020,000

£0.19p - Average Security Cost Per Passenger.

London City Airport

Passengers 2,904,013

Security £5,500,000

Minus Rebate 0

Total Taxpayer Cost - £5,500,000

£1.89p - Average Security Cost Per Passenger.

So per passenger London Airport costs £1.70 more. Thats 1000% more!!!

STOP PRESS: Private Eye's - Smart Alec

In the latest edition of Private Eye (28 Nov 08) you will find a rather interesting article in the 'Rotten Boroughs' section, p13 entitled 'Smart Alec'. Your local newsagent will happily sell you a copy of the genius publication for £1.50.

Regular readers of the Eye will be aware that Newham Council and Sir Robin Wales are a frequent feature in the Rotten Boroughs section - which is indicative of the less than healthy activities and interests that the local council seems to be happy to be promote and be part of. Other names mentioned are : Hill & Knowlton and Boris, Mayor of London.

"SMART ALEC"

"Last month Newham council voted in favour of allowing London City Airport to increase flights from 80,000 to 120,000 a year - an extra 150 flights a day. The protests of east London residents worried about noise , pollution and global warming were brushed aside. Anti-airport campaigners were dismayed at the about-turn of London mayor Boris Johnson, who had said he opposed the airport's expansion and then said he was actually in favour of it.

Newham labour councillor and City Airport consultative committee member Alec Kellaway is a big supporter of the airport, faithfully following the line of Newham mayor "Sir" Robin Wales that it is "good for jobs" andhelps regenerate the area. Alas , very little of the business that comes through the airport actually stays in the borough - although there are oppurtunities for cleaners.

City Airport earlier this year hired big-hitting PR firm Hill & Knowlton to spin its case. H&K is owned by the US media/PR conglomerate WPP - in which according to Newham council's register of members interests , Cllr Alec Kellaway happens to own shares worth more than £25,000. No conflict of interest there , then."

London City Airport To Meet With Newham 26-11-08

Our mole informs us that Charles Buchanan and colleagues are off to Newham Town Hall Annex tomorrow to meet with Sunil et al of Newham Planning. The point? To discuss the secret section 106 of course.

Strangely enough it appears that the section 106 might be as much a mystery to some particular LCA staff - they've been searching for details on the section 106 on this blog all day! The current section 106 is available from FTF to all LCA senior management at the cost of £10 to cover photocopy charges - oh, and don't forget to send a SAE.