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Why we can’t let a 3rd Heathrow runway happen
It’s 1am on a Monday night and all you want is sleep, but you can't because of the constant rumble of planes over your house.
All you want is a moment of peace, so you go to the local park, you then realise that the planes are both louder and so low you could almost wave to the pilot.
I have been living under the Heathrow flight path for 22 years, and it never used to bother me; doesn’t everyone have to constantly turn up the TV every two minutes in order to hear anything? But it wasn’t until I moved back from university back home that I noticed just how intense it was.
Of course it’s not just the noise pollution, there is the actual air pollution to worry about. Just a couple of months ago London’s pollution was at an all time deadly high, in fact pollution kills up to 9,000 people a year. There is a concentrated pollution hotspot in West London, right under the flight path, that will only get worse if we let this third runway happen.
If you too live under the flight path you will know the dread that summer brings, the constant rumble of planes a minute apart from each other as people start jetting off around the globe for their summer holidays. You will also learn to love fog and terrible weather conditions, and the flight grounding that they bring.
The Governments Airports Commission recommended that a Heathrow expansion would be the most beneficial (despite Gatwick also being proposed). There was a lot in the press about whether to build a third runway at Heathrow or not and according to a government leaflet the third runway will “provide tens of thousands of additional jobs” and “create up to £61 billion worth of economic benefits”.
There will allegedly be a “£700 million package for noise pollution” they haven’t said what this includes, which homes will be eligible for this and how this will happen. The real piss-take is the 6 hours, 30 minutes ban on night flights, people need longer than 6 measly hours to sleep a night. What about the people with young children or the poor people who have to work nights? The leaflet is littered with plenty of other placatory BS that does not give any actual answers or explanation as to the future of the people stuck under the flight path.
I for one will be attending one of these proposed planning meetings and making my voice heard.
