Gatwick Taskforce Announced

The South East Airports Taskforce is a sensible step forward, although I'm not sure I would've gone with that particular name! I'm glad the Government is following up its commitment to no runway expansion at Gatwick and Heathrow with proper action to determine how we can move forward and deal with the pressure on capacity now that extra runways have been ruled out.

We have to be wary, though, of just handing more and more power to the big players in the aviation industry. It would be easy to see this as a special interests club working behind closed doors, but we have to resist that and make sure that the views and concerns of the people who are affected most by the changes to airports, including local residents, are properly heard. It's good to see some consumer and environmental representation on the taskforce, but we've got to strike a more even balance to ensure that local concerns - including over issues such as noise pollution - are at the front of the taskforce's mind when deciding on future capacity policy. I've already raised this issue in Parliament, and I'll be following closely the upcoming discussion on the remit and makeup of the taskforce over the next few weeks.

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