New polling shows that Londoners don’t want more planes flying over the city
New polling from climate charity Possible, and conducted by Survation, has shown that a huge majority of Londoners don’t want more planes flying over the city. More than three quarters of people want the number of flights over London to either remain the same or reduce, with just 11% of people thinking more flights should be allowed.
London City Airport currently has a consultation open on expanding the number of flights at the airport, which closes on Friday 17 March.
The airport is trying to increase its yearly passenger limit from 6.5 million to 9 million, which would mean bigger planes that will be both louder and more polluting, flying planes on Saturday mornings and evenings, which it currently isn’t allowed to do, and operating more flights early in the mornings and evenings, beyond the times flights are permitted to operate now. This would increase noise and pollution for Londoners, particularly those living close to the airport.
While the airport claims that flying newer planes would decrease noise, the reality is that new planes would only be noticeably quieter on lift off. While they might be slightly more fuel efficient than older planes of the same size, they would still be bigger and therefore would inflict an increase in noise, air pollution and emissions on London residents. Planes taking off across wider periods of time and at anti-social hours would also remove much valued respite time for local residents.
Local campaigners and Possible are advocating for the expansion to not go ahead.
Alethea Warrington, senior campaigner at climate charity Possible, said:
“Londoners are clear - they simply do not want more flights going over our city. The last thing we need in the middle of the climate crisis is airports trying to change the rules so they can fly more planes. London City Airport’s plans would inflict even more noise and air pollution on local residents, as well as worsen the climate crisis which already caused temperatures so hot that runways melted last summer. Instead of more plane pollution, we need the government to start supporting our domestic and international rail links, so people can travel without harming the climate.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
For the polling results please click HERE.
For media enquiries and further information please contact press@wearepossible.org or 07806431577.
Alethea Warrington, senior campaigner at climate charity Possible, is available for comment. Please contact press@wearepossible.org for more information.
Possible is a UK-based charity that brings people together to take positive, practical action on climate change. Combining individual and local actions with larger systemic change, we connect people with each other, and communities with ways to address the climate crisis. Wearepossible.org.
Possible has produced a tool that London residents can use to respond to the consultation to say they don’t want more planes overhead. This is available here: https://action.wearepossible.org/page/122949/action/1.
Image credit thumbnail- (c) Aleem Yousaf the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.