I'm calling today for a further legal review of the Stansted airport decision announced today at the High Court, following a four day hearing held at the end of February, the first day of which I attended the court. The hearing considered a challenge by Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) to the Government's decision to allow expansion to 35 million passengers per year.
In handing down his judgement, Justice Sir Thane Forbes dismissed the three grounds for Appeal by SSE but also appeared to agree with them that their arguments were justified; ie that issues they appealed on were legitimate areas for consideration in planning terms, including noise impacts.
SSE are now seeking a further Appeal as this judgement appears confusing.
The judge appears to be saying that noise is a legitimate area for consideration but then goes on to throw out the Appeal which was based on just such concerns. If this expansion goes ahead, or worse still a new runway, noise blight over large areas of Essex, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire will dramatically worsen, which as far as I am concerned as the prospective Green Party MEP for this Region, is a totally unacceptable impact on people's health and wellbeing.
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