The first document has just landed and is currently having its details unpacked.
To readers of this blog the many and various proposals to build large airports in the Thames estuary have been regularly covered, here's some background.
Sufficient it to say that we think this is a very bad and dangerous idea – for safe flying, for local communities, for the environment of the Thames estuary and for its wildlife. These are arguments that will play out in the context of a consultation in airport capacity in the South East of England.
And we have been geared up for that consultation in parallel with the Government’s draft Aviation Policy Framework. But they’ve been disconnected, the Framework now and the South East and its options in the autumn.
Whether politically-driven or delayed by process matters little as the economic drivers within the Framework now skew the argument from the start and risk missing the wider context of impact on our climate, on our communities and on our environment.
We’ll be making sure the dots are joined.
Here’s RSPB Conservation Director on the tests that need to be applied.
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Justine Greenings announcement confirms the UK Government’s continued pursuit of economic growth regardless of the cost to people, wildlife and our environment.
If these consultations are to truly be evidence based then the government must join all the dots as you say. We will be watching this blog with great interest and we urge everyone to do the same and respond to this important draft document before the 31st October
Friends of the North Kent Marshes
Conservation and Communities United
Saying NO Estuary Airport