Letters to the editor: Gatwick won’t take no for an answer

Gatwick Airport
Anthony Devlin / PA Wire/Press Association Images
26 August 2015
WEST END FINAL

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Gatwick’s renewed attempts to lobby for expansion are becoming increasingly desperate. Its latest efforts to undermine the unanimous decision of the Airports Commission were slapped down by Sir Howard Davies and showed how weak its arguments for another runway are.

Expanding Gatwick would not solve the blockage in the UK’s aviation system, which is a lack of hub airport capacity. London desperately needs a bigger and better Heathrow to deliver routes to emerging economies around the world. A third runway at Heathrow would also provide thousands of jobs at the airport, in London and across the UK. It is time to ignore Gatwick’s delaying tactics and to get on with building a runway where it is both wanted and needed: at Heathrow.
Rob Gray, Back Heathrow Campaign

When will Gatwick Airport get the message that its bid to expand was rejected? Looking at the adverts around London, anyone would think the airport is still in the race for a new runway. The reality is that its plans were dumped because they would not deliver for London or the UK. It’s about time we stopped wasting time and letting our economy fall behind — we need to get on and build the third runway so that London can benefit from thousands of new jobs at Heathrow.
Jade Colgan

In recommending a third runway at Heathrow, the Airports Commission’s report admits that its indicative “airspace designs” “have not been developed on the basis of public consultation”.

Further, those “Final Airspace Designs” — flight paths, to you and me — will only be produced “very shortly before” the new runway opens. How on earth can Londoners, who may be facing the very real threat of “a new aerial motorway” where none existed before, make their objections heard before the Government goes for Heathrow’s expansion? I smell a very large rat!
Richard Mutton

Let’s stop wasting time arguing over Gatwick and Heathrow expansion. Instead, Luton can serve all destinations west of the UK and Stansted destinations in the east. Cancel expensive HS2 — but satisfy the clamour for high-speed rail by running fast trains from St Pancras International to Luton Airport, from there through a new twin-bore tunnel to Stansted, and thence into London on the existing straight and level line via Tottenham Hale into Liverpool Street.
Roger Juer

There has been no consideration of the noise impact of two planes approaching Heathrow over London side by side on parallel flight paths.

This “doubling up” of aircraft approaches, which would be a feature of an expanded Heathrow, ought to be trialled.
Mike Crawford

Stop historic items getting into IS hands

The barbarian gang marauding across the Middle East has nothing but a thin veil of religious fervour to cover its true purpose.

The so-called Islamic State should be called out for exactly what it is — a violent criminal organisation, destroying the heritage of mankind for material gain. The fact that IS fighters destroy some artefacts on the grounds that they are “heretical” is surely facile headline-grabbing, especially when more valuable antiquities which are surely no less “pagan” are sold for financial gain.

With photos recently published by IS purporting to show the demolition of the Temple of Baalshamin, the UN has described the desecration of Syria’s cultural heritage as a “war crime”. Rightly so.

While it may seem like a confusion of priorities to call for strategic strikes to prevent the total destruction of historical sites such as those at Palmyra (when strikes for other purposes have been avoided), the preservation of valuable artefacts, and preventing them from falling into the hands of groups to fuel their violent aims, must surely be of the utmost importance.
Peter Sabat

Labour went Left long before Corbyn

I am once again flabbergasted at the flawed views of Labour grandees, previously Ken Livingstone and now Frank Field.

I have total respect for Mr Field but in his comment piece for the Evening Standard on Monday he was wrong in his assertion that Labour is now in “unchartered territory” with Jeremy Corbyn.

With respect, Labour has gone down this route before. As an antidote to Mrs Thatcher, Labour proudly elected Left-wing veteran Michael Foot (instead of Denis Healey). He stood in the 1983 election on a platform promising a return to nationalisation and as a very Left-wing alternative to Thatcherism — Labour was crushed as the Conservatives won a landslide victory.

This is far from “unchartered territory” for the Labour Party — and it will end in the same way.
David Doe

Is the Frank Field who wrote in your newspaper on Monday that “Corbyn’s principles will land the party on the electoral rocks” the same Frank Field MP who nominated Corbyn?

If so, he could have saved the time and effort by starting and finishing the article with one word: “sorry”.
David Muir

Developers won’t solve housing crisis

To know developers can buy the political influence of a possible future Mayor of London for the price of a used car [“Labour mayoral hopefuls accepting tens of thousands in donations from property tycoons”, Monday] is very worrying indeed for Londoners and our democracy.

With genuinely affordable (not 80 per cent market rent) housing at the top of London’s agenda for the foreseeable future, it’s now obvious why some Labour candidates are advocating the selling of even more publicly owned land to private developers, thereby exacerbating an already acute situation.

London’s housing crisis is 100 per cent solvable. However, developers intent on maximising profit — along with politicians on their payroll — are definitely not the solution.
Rashid Nix, Green Party mayoral candidate

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