Campaigners criticise Belfast City Airport consultation
08.12.08
Opponents of the 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 path say 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 resident's opportunities to contribute to the exercise.
The airport has lodged an application to extend its main runway by almost 600 metres. This will allow planes to take off with heavier loads, and also allow operators already using the airport to fly to more destinations.
However, residents' group Belfast City Airport Watch, says that it will lead to increased aircraft noise over homes, schools and business around the airport. A spokesman for the group said the public consultation was not giving opponents a fair chance to voice their views. She told the newspaper: ‘The deadline is utterly ludicrous.'
'The Department of Environment (DoE) should have held this consultation after Christmas. Instead, they waited for a fortnight after the airport announced its planning application - 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 in the Christmas post if they don't write in now.'
The campaigners called on Environment Minister Sammy Wilson to stop the Planning consultation and hold a public inquiry on the plan. However, 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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