In its recent submission to the Planning Inspectorate*, Gatwick Airport compares the known health risks from aircraft ultra-fine particles with smoking cigarettes. The government is clear that smoking can cause long-term negative effects on the body, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
As the planning examination for Gatwick’s new runway ends on 21 August, CAGNE calls on the Planning Inspectorate to put in place legally binding criteria to actively prevent Gatwick from flying additional planes if it breaches air quality standards across the 2 runways.
CAGNE, the umbrella aviation community and environment group for Sussex, Surrey and Kent, has been at the forefront of opposing the new runway at Gatwick Airport, termed as the northern runway project.
With a planned increase of 101,000 flights a year, Gatwick is offering a legally binding noise envelope to provide some sort of assurance for residents that noise will be controlled. Yet they are not offering any similar legally binding assurances to protect residents from air pollution.
As part of the community submissions to oppose the new runway, CAGNE’s air quality experts (Air Pollution Services, part of KALACO Group Ltd) have continued to make clear:
- The Applicant suggests that the health effects of ultrafine particles (UFP), are unimportant because the hazard ratio, i.e. the relative risk of smoking is 20 times higher. This would suggest that the Applicant also considers the health effects of PM2.5 exposure is unimportant, as the hazard ratio for PM2.5 exposure is a similar to that for UFP according to the most recent study. This is clearly wrong, as it is widely accepted that exposure to PM2.5 is a major health risk. The comparison with smoking, which is a choice by an individual, with an air pollutant over which an individual has no control over, is inappropriate.
- The road transport modelling does not follow good practice as set out in government guidance despite the applicant (Gatwick) assertion that it does.
- The roads modelling is not fit-for-purpose. That is, it does not reliably estimate concentrations of pollutants at locations across the study area.
- The Applicant acknowledges that negative effects on air quality already occur below the current standards, but the air quality assessment produced by the airport fails to assess the significance of these effects.
In June 2024, a new study by green group Transport & Environment* (T&E) suggests that thousands of cases of high blood pressure, diabetes and dementia across Europe could be linked to the tiny particles emitted by planes.
“Air quality standards can only improve in recognition of increased understanding of how air pollution, ‘the silent killer’, is affecting lives. Yet Gatwick Airport seeks to do little more than monitor the effects, in full knowledge of the results of scientific research carried out by Dr Gary Fuller into the particles that come from its airfield.”
A spokesperson for CAGNE said, “To prevent a long-term decline in air quality, CAGNE, on behalf of residents, must ensure that safeguards are in place before the DCO is closed.
“The evidence before the Inspectorate is clear. We hope they will act accordingly to control air quality, to protect our health and reduce costs to the NHS”, concluded CAGNE.