ESRA supports the GAL Consultation for Airport Development
In response to the call for consideration of the Development plans by Gatwick Airport Ltd, We are pleased to advise that East Sussex Rail Alliance in conjunction with Kent&Sussex Connect are in full agreement with the principle of expansion of the Airport’s capacity and ability to provide increased aircraft movement and flexibility by incorporating the Northern Runway; and the generally improved ability to access the Terminal Buildings resulting from improving the road layouts and the rail connection.
In these issues, our consulting stakeholders have also put these views to the Transport for South East consultation, being undertaken at this time in connection with the proposed Business Plan to be presented to the Department for Transport in early Spring 2022.
Our one caveat is that GAL should be encouraged further to accelerate its ambition with regard to cutting carbon emissions within the airport complex but also leading the case for much enhanced investment in the roads and rail infrastructure which serves not only the Airport itself but also the surrounding employment source and the wider South East region.
The fact is that other than the prime London centric Motorway M23 and the London (Victora)-Brighton railway artery, access from West and East Sussex and Kent has been substantially underfunded for as long as the Airport has been in its expanded use in the 1960s.
Our view is that rail improvements can from now be made to prove a very efficient Cost Benefit wherever they are planned and delivered, in comparison with road – which then influences hgv/psv employment demand and again sets a new adverse encouragement for car rather than bus/coach provision. The advantage of so many proposed rail enhancements is that the land take is proportionately far less than road schemes – and can be delivered in a shorter time scale given the political will to do so. This would also tackle some of the trending parking at the Airport on larger areas clawed back from green fields – and provide incentive to rail developers around newly designated out-of-town Parkway-type interchange stations – so spreading the incoming and outgoing travel loadings and putting greater percentage onto rail and other public transport.
We applaud the way GAL has faced the Carbon reduction issues and targets – but adds the rider that the original aspiration for a full second runway should be only postponed, rather than eliminated, from long-term plans.