Belfast City Airport consultation ‘a sham’
08.12.08
Opponents of a controversial plan to extend the runway at Belfast City Airport have branded the public consultation on the proposal a sham, the Belfast Telegraph reports. Angry residents living under the flight paths claim the Planning Service's four week window for objections is too short and say holding it over the festive period, with a Boxing Day deadline, will further limit people's opportunities to contribute to the exercise.
The airport has lodged an application to extend its main runway by almost 600 metres to allow planes to take off with heavier loads. This will also allow operators already using the airport to fly to more destinations.
However, residents' group Belfast City Airport Watch, says that it will also increase aircraft noise over homes, schools and business around the airport. A spokesman for the group said the public consultation on the plan was not giving opponents a fair chance to voice their views. She told the newspaper: ‘The deadline is utterly ludicrous.'
'The DOE (Department of Environment) could have held this consultation after Christmas - but, instead, they waited for a fortnight after the airport announced its planning application - and then said they were allowing just four weeks for objections with a nonsensical deadline of Boxing Day. This means people don't even have four weeks - because their letters risk getting caught up in the Christmas post if they don't write in now.'
The campaigners have called on Environment Minister Sammy Wilson to stop the Planning consultation and instead hold a public inquiry on the plan. A spokesman for the DoE's Planning Service told the newspaper that while the four week consultation was in accordance with minimum statutory requirements, comments on the plan lodged after the deadline would still be taken into account by planners.
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