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LibDems won't take night flights lying down!
March 1, 2004 4:36 PM
Sarah Ludford with Susan Kramer, Prospective Parliamentary candidate for Richmond Park and Antony Wood, Prospective Candidate for Windsor, ready to lie down and be counted!
London LibDems Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP and Susan Kramer joined fellow night flight protesters last Friday (27th February) condemning the Department for Transport's consultation exercise about night flights as a sham.
Protesters staged a lie down protest outside the venue of the consultation (Thistle Hotel, Victoria) at which there were 8 industry speakers but not one resident directly affected by the plans.
London's LIbDem Euro-MP Baroness Sarah Ludford said:
"Labour is letting down Londoners over aviation. Noise pollution from aircraft has a highly detrimental effect on quality of life for London residents and yet the government wants to increase the misery, rather than say no to big business lobbying.
"Tony Blair's government is not doing enough to tackle air pollution around Heathrow and Londoners also face the threat of changes in operating practices at the airport to increase the number of flights*. How much more suffering is to be inflicted?"
Susan Kramer, Prospective Parliamentary candidate for Richmond Park added:
"It is ironic that airlines are putting beds on their planes to allow long haul passengers to get a good night's sleep, whilst simultaneously showing a total disregard for the rights of people living under the flight path to have the same privilege. Sleeping is a basic human right. It is about time that the Government and the Aviation industry wake up to this fact and take some notice of people living in West London under the flight path."
Note
*At present there is alternation of use of runways 1 and 2 so that at least residents get some relief at particular times of the day, but the Government decision last December that a 3rd runway could not be built for the time being (due to breach of EU air pollution limits) carried a sting in the tail: They said they would be moving to lift the restriction which imposes the alternation so that both runways could be in constant use.
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