A second runway at Stansted would bring only misery to local people

2:15pm Wednesday 30th April 2008

YOUR headline (April 10 edition) asks: Second runway - is it that bad?' A second runway would enable Stansted Airport to carry up to 70 million passengers per year. That is nearly three times its current use and will equate with Heathrow Airport. One can only imagine the effect of that on our doorstep.

The second runway would involve the take-up of more than 1,000 acres of some of the most fertile land in the country, the destruction of a number of listed buildings and the shattering of local communities in this beautiful part of Essex. The increased traffic will require another junction on the M11 north of Junction 8, involving further land-take. Then would follow more housing, commerce and industry to service the airport.

BAA plans a third runway at Heathrow thus handling some 100 million passengers per year. Here, up to two million people in communities around the airport will be adversely affected and, indeed, the village of Siphon will be obliterated.

So, to respond to your headline question, the answer must be a resounding yes'.

Rot Heath.

Ollards Grove, Loughton.

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