Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP
Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
Fry Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF 23 November 2018
Dear Secretary of State
STANSTED AIRPORT PLANNING APPLICATION
UTT/18/0460/FUL
I am writing on behalf of Bishop’s Stortford Civic Federation about the application by Stansted Airport to increase its capacity to 43 million passengers per year (mppa), compared with the 26 mppa who used it last year, for which Uttlesford District Council recently decided to grant planning permission through the exercise of the Planning Committee Chairman’s casting vote.
Bishop’s Stortford is by far the largest community close to the airport which is affected by the airport’s activities. While residents may enjoy the travel and job opportunities which the airport creates, we are also the ones who suffer most from the adverse impacts of the airport – noise pollution, traffic congestion, fly parking and pressure on housing, medical and other social infrastructure.
As planning authority, Uttlesford had no duty to take account of any adverse impacts arising beyond its boundaries in determining the application and no ability to compel mitigation measures to be applied within the area of a neighbouring authority. Indeed it showed no interest in or awareness of the problems the granting of permission would cause Bishop’s Stortford. We are therefore writing in support of Stop Stansted Expansion’s application to you to have this application determined nationally, so that the impacts which will undoubtedly spread beyond the boundaries of Uttlesford can be properly evaluated and tested. We hope that you will agree that the implications of this application extend beyond the competence of Uttlesford as local planning authority and that you will therefore agree to call it in for your own determination.
I am copying this letter to Mark Prisk MP with the request that he too invites you to call in the application for national determination.
Yours Sincerely
Reply from Mark Prisk MP stating his position on Stansted Airport planning application
Reply from Mark Prisk MP
BSCF’s response to Mark Prisk MP’s letter above
Mark Prisk Esq MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
12 December 2018
Dear Mark
STANSTED AIRPORT PLANNING APPLICATION
Thank you for your letter of 4 December responding to my letter of 23 November to the Secretary of State asking him to call in Stansted Airport’s planning application to expand to 43 mppa for national determination.
My letter did not address the merits of the application. It simply pointed out that the largest community to face the potentially adverse consequences of such expansion was Bishop’s Stortford – your constituents. As a local planning authority Uttlesford District Council has no power to consider the impacts of airport expansion beyond its boundary or to require any mitigation measures in the area of a neighbouring authority. Such matters can only be properly evaluated if the application is determined at national level. I would therefore have expected that, whatever your views about the desirability of expansion, you would have supported the Civic Federation’s request that the application should be called in for national determination so that the concerns of Bishop’s Stortford residents can be properly assessed.
Incidentally, the present application does not envisage using the existing runway to anything like its full capacity. Had such an application been lodged it would automatically have fallen to be considered as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project under the Planning Act 2008 and the matter would have been taken out of Uttlesford’s hands.
I appreciate that you will have more pressing concerns on your mind at present but I would nevertheless be grateful if you would support our request for the application to be called in.
Second reply from Mark Prisk MP in response to John Rhodes’s second letter of 12 Dec 2018
Second reply from Mark Prisk MP
