Tuesday, May 06, 2008

PR Employee Shows Contempt For Objecting Residents

Just in the last few days our attention was drawn to an extraordinary online blog article written by a self claimed PR employee of London City Airport (but who claims the blog is not endorsed by LCA), which attacks residents who dare to object to the LCA expansion application. It seems growing objectors have caused them considerable anxiety.

It is difficult to believe that the blog has not been written by somebody who is interested in doing PR on behalf of the airport. It comes across as a well-written piece of marketing for the airport. It makes no real attempt to respond to the arguments on this website. And it certainly doesn’t show any understanding of where local people are coming from.

They attack those that live or have moved into the area: Of course those of us who have moved into the area in recent years knew of the existence of the airport but there was no way we could have foreseen that the owners of the airport would want to go for such a huge increase in the number of flights. The impact on residents will be widespread. It will affect people living many miles from City Airport . Already there are people in South East London and parts of North London complaining about the growing impact of City Airport aircraft.

The economic impact of the airport is more complex than has been suggested. Investment is just about anything creates jobs but if the downsides of the development become so severe it can harm the attractiveness of an area to business.

We need an independent study to look at whether an expanded airport – with all that means in terms of noise and pollution – is really in the economic interest of the Thames Gateway area.