Crispin Blunt

Conservative Party | Reigate

Gatwick and Redhill Airports

Thank you for your recent letter and taking part in Reigate and Banstead Borough Council's campaign on the proposed expansion at Gatwick Airport and Redhill Aerodrome.

You will not be surprised to know that your concerns are very widely and actively shared, not just by me. These have been submitted to the Department for Transport as part of the consultation which closed at the end of June.

The proposal for new runways at Gatwick has been fiercely contested by the Gatwick Area Conservation Group and 80 County, Borough, District, Parish Councils and environmental groups in the area. Our ongoing cooperation and discussion of Gatwick related issues over previous years has been invaluable in getting the campaign together.

The unanimous support for the legal agreement preventing any new runway before 2019 from so many Councils will make it difficult for the Government to revoke the agreement and a wide range of national pressure groups including CPRE, The National Trust, RSPB and the Woodland Trust, are also resisting these proposals.

I remain confident that our efforts will be crowned by success and no new runways will be proposed at Gatwick in the immediate future. Given that the Government are only consulting on options at Gatwick because they were instructed to do so by a judge, not on their own merits, it would be extraordinary if this were not the case. However the campaign of which you have been a part has shown we are not complacent and the case against expansion at Gatwick rests on its own merits.

On Redhill Aerodrome KRAG (Keep Redhill Airfield Green) which represents those affected by Redhill aerodrome is campaigning, with my support, not only to prevent the creation of a hard runway on this site within the Green Belt but also the extraordinary proposal for a major international airport at the site. I first started working on the subject shortly after I was first elected to the House of Commons in May 1997. Redhill aerodrome crosses the boundary of the Reigate and East Surrey constituencies and Peter Ainsworth and I have worked closely together over aerodrome issues. Following the latest proposals by Redhill Aerodrome Ventures for an airport up to half the capacity of Gatwick Peter and I wrote a strong letter of objection to Alistair Darling and delivered a rebuttal from KRAG. We have also joined the various local protests and I have assisted KRAG with submitting evidence to the Transport Select Committee in the House of Commons rebuffing the more outlandish claims of the owners of the Aerodrome.

The proposals for Redhill and Gatwick would change the area out of all recognition and blight tens of thousands of lives, which is why you can be sure I will continue to campaign against the proposals.

Yours sincerely,

Crispin Blunt