GACC Update

Following the meeting hosted by Charlwood Parish Council, the GACC committee were overwhelmed by the number of people who attended. One thing we noticed is residents had not been aware until they saw our presentations just how significant some of the impacts will be on our community.

A first hearing in the legal challenge against the SoS decision to grant Gatwick permission to develop its emergency runway was held in December.

We are now at the stage of the Judicial Review Hearings which challenge the decision and start on Tuesday 20th at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Your support is now, more than ever, important.

The five grounds of the challenge are:

o The government has misunderstood their aviation policy. In particular, the ANPS ruled out a second runway at Gatwick in favour of Heathrow expansion because of the threat of the Heathrow’s hub status. The reasons for this were not considered or understood by the Government.

o The government has undermined the legal framework that is designed to ensure that major infrastructure decisions are taken in accordance with planning and climate change policy. This was particularly the case in the context of a decision on Gatwick expansion being taken at the same time as aviation policies were acknowledged to be outdated and in need of review.

o The government failed to comply with the requirement to assess the environmental impacts of the proposed expansion, in particular, climate change impacts. The Secretary of State recognised the potential impact of non CO2 emissions but failed to ensure any meaningful assessment of them.

o The government failed to lawfully assess the need for and benefits of expansion, despite relying heavily on these benefits to approve expansion. Specifically, business passengers are key to the economic case and in particular the national benefits of expansion. However, key omissions to demonstrate whether these figures were realistic (despite them far exceeding the government’s own figures) were asked for but never provided.

o The government failed to properly apply their own policy on noise, including the requirement to consider whether the benefits of aviation growth are shared with local residents. Improvements in technology should result in lower noise levels for local residents but key measures to make sure this happened are toothless and unenforceable, even while the government called them “robust”.

We are grateful for the support you have shown so far in our efforts to prevent the DCO from becoming a reality. But we do need further financial support as GACC continues to fundraise to support Peter Barclay (Chair of GACC) in his critically important judicial review challenging the expansion of Gatwick Airport.

Please support the claim by contributing to our Crowd Justice fundraising campaign.

The link to fund raising is here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/gacc/

Or donations can be made directly to our bank at : Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, Nat West Bank plc, Sort Code 60–11–41, A/C number 52474119.

Your support would be much appreciated.

Kind regards

GACC Committee

About GACC

The Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign is a voluntary association, with an executive committee elected each year. Care is taken to ensure that committee member is prepared to work for the public welfare of the Gatwick area.

GACC is totally law abiding and relies on rational argument to influence government and aviation authorities.

Because we represent the whole area around Gatwick, because we are democratically elected, and because we have established a high reputation for accuracy and constructive proposals, we have strong support from local MPs and considerable influence in Westminster and Whitehall