The CAA has now issued its report on the changes to Route 4.

The decision is to approve the route and finally close the Airspace Change Process that began back in 2012.

In coming to its decision, the CAA has obtained a number of undertakings from Gatwick to investigate various things. These include:

- the possibility of raising the height of both Routes 3 & 4 by 1,000 ft,

- a second route parallel to the current route along the easterly portion, i.e. after the bend, that would be alternated in some way with the current route,

- contacting airlines that are flying outside the noise monitoring swathe of the NPR with a view to getting them to adjust their operating procedures to improve performance round the turn.

- the possibility of putting some Route 4 traffic onto other routes.

These are areas for consideration by Gatwick. With the exception of the third bullet, they may not lead to any change as they will need to be fully explored and consulted on if change is to be proposed. They are also complex and Plane Wrong wishes to understand them better. Hence we have raised a number of queries with the CAA for clarification before commenting further.

We will also be reviewing our strategy for both Routes in the light of these developments. In order to do so we will be creating a log of all the Gatwick issues that we believe any solution should address. Please feel free to let us know (by replying to this email) if there is a particular issue that you think we might not have captured. It would be helpful if you can be as specific as possible i.e. which Route causes it, when did it start, what locations roughly are affected, why you believe it is unfair and needs to be changed.

Thanks for your ongoing support and please keep complaining to Gatwick about planes that disturb you.

Best wishes,

Mike Ward

Chair

PLANEWRONG

The Government has issued a Consultation about the next 5-year night flight regimes at Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted airports. They are meant to come into effect in October.

We believe the Consultation is not fit for purpose and our friends at GON (Gatwick Obviously Not) have submitted a full response to the Consultation regarding Gatwick which we fully endorse.

Follow there 'one click' process to ensure your voice is heard through their website.

Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC) is co-ordinating the campaign against a second runway at Gatwick. They are expecting that a decision on a new runway will be announced either in the Parliamentary session that runs from 5 to 15 September, or in the session that starts on 10 October.

May we ask you to take the following urgent action -

1. seek any opportunity to make personal contact with MPs, and especially Cabinet Ministers (for example, Chris Grayling or Greg Clark), to urge them to oppose a second Gatwick runway. Or ask your friends in other parts of the country to do so.

2. write letters to the national newspapers, preferably responding to any report or article about Gatwick or about airports in general. If you would like to join the GACC letter writing team we can send you hints on how to get your letters published.

3. press your County, Borough or District councillors to be more active in opposing a new Gatwick runway.

For help on what to say, please see GACC's brief on ‘The Case Against a Second Gatwick Runway Restated’. They will be sending this to all 650 MPs at the end of August.

GACC has written to the Transport Secretary to warn him that if the decision were to be for Gatwick they would consider seeking Judicial Review. GACC has also co-ordinated a letter from all the Gatwick community groups to the Prime Minister. Plane Wrong is a signatory to that letter.

We cannot stress enough how critical this is for our area. A 2nd runway at Gatwick would change this beautiful area forever. Apart from doubling the noise, I am sure you are aware of the extra housing, additional roads and expansion of the rail network that would be required. Then there would be all the extra activity created by new businesses feeding off the airport and sucking in more people, with resultant pressure on our already over-stretched infrastructure.

We are now two months into the modifications to Route 4. With the change to the summer schedules and a consistent use of the westerly departure Route, we now have a feel for how design is working in practice.

We have received mixed reviews from supporters and so will continue to collate feedback in advance of follow on discussions with Gatwick Airport.

Please continue to provide your feedback to Route4@gatwickairport.com.

The CAA consultation on changes to the 'Airspace Change Process 'closes this week on the 15th June 2016.

The aim of the proposed changes is to make the process more transparent and allow for greater stakeholder particpation including local communities.

Plane Wrong welcomes the consultation by the CAA and believes that the changes proposed have the potential to create a fairer and more transparent process. However, we have a number of concerns about how the changes will be implemented in practice to ensure that information is presented clearly and community concerns are taken account of in the decision making process.

A full copy of Plane Wrong's submission is available in the download section.

We encourage individuals to also submit a response through their portal here.