‘Will homes be knocked down to make room for runway?’
Thursday 24th September 2009, 11:30AM BST.
David Rihoy poses his question at last night’s meeting at Forest School. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 0845898)
PROPERTY demolition or devaluation and environmental concerns came to the fore at last night’s public meeting to discuss £81m. airport refurbishment proposals.
About 85 people attended the meeting at Forest School and came out in favour of politicians asking the questions after Public Services minister Bernard Flouquet initially said he would not take questions from deputies.
He was forced to change his mind after a show of hands from the majority supported the opposite view. Deputy Flouquet later apologised and said that from his experience of other such forums, the public did not like politicians taking over.
Airport director Colin Le Ray presented the plans, which are due to be debated by the States next week.
He and Deputy Flouquet answered a range of questions, many from people who live near the western end of the runway, where the biggest changes are proposed.
Chris Meinke wanted to know if there were any plans to demolish properties. Mr Le Ray said there were not, but a greenhouse chimney and some trees had been identified as potential problems.
Kerry Fell asked why the department was not proposing to change the glide slope of aircraft.
That had not been ruled out, said Mr Le Ray, but he added that the Civil Aviation Authority would consider glide path changes only as a result of obstacles and not for environmental reasons.
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Why do they need to spend £81 million on the airport? For what benefit to the island?
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They need to spend money on the airport in order for it to continue to meet the standards required to allow commercial traffic to use it. It is rather tired, I use it frequently and you can see the difference between here and others that have had more recent work. This is a safety issue and should not be ignored. The incidents at Bristol whereby an Aurigny ATR (and a few others) had control difficulty in the wet is a recent example of what can occur. (These incidents occurred during work to the surfaces but highlight how quickly things can go wrong when you have a runway surface that is not suitable)
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the lengthening the re-surfacing needs to be addressed in the near future.
The other half of your questions regarding the actual cost is something that perhaps the Press could look into, some have made comparisons to work carried out at other aerodromes for “similar” work at a fraction of what we are being quoted. It would be interesting to know how “similar” the projects were.
I notice someone brought up adjusting the glide path for approaches into Guernsey, this is something that in my opinion should not occur and hopefully the CAA will adhere to their rule that this is only done for obstacle clearance purposes (eg London City) rather than “environmental” ones, and by environmental I assume they mean noise? Noise is not normally an issue for arriving traffic.
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We need to upgrade the airport for a number of reasons, firstly the runway which is the essential part of any airfield operation need resurfacing and strengthened as we get more frequent and heavier aircraft, the lighting needs replacing together with its cabling as it is old and has to be upgraded to modern standards, the drainage needs doing in order to install interceptors to collect either foam or fuel and prevent it getting into our vital water table together with taking water from the runway and preventing flooding during torrential downpours. The taxi ways need strengthening and realigning to accommodate longer aircraft with a much wider turning circle. The controversial bits apart from the massive cost which will be spread over several years are the RESA’s the run off safety areas at both ends of the runway and the debate is how long should these be and what the Civil aviation Authority will accept. We need all of this to bring our airport up to modern standards and maintain our vital airlinks with the outside world there is no doubt that States members will have to scrutinise these costs closely but I hope that goes some way to answering your question.
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Mr White
Perhaps a more appropriate question is why is the proposed work at the airport costing so much?
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Shame we wasted so much money building the new terminal! It’s all very nice and comfortable, but does it really benefit anyone, and was it worth all the cost?
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Greg, it doesn’t benefit anybody! It’s just to show to our rich “friends” that we can afford a nice expensive terminal, the old one worked perfectly. They could at least paint the ATC tower, as it’s still the old green…
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I certainly think we needed a new Terminal Greg as the old one was very tired. Whether it had to be quite so fancy is another matter altogether.
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I hardly think our terminal could be described as fancy. It is functional and provides a decent entry point to our island.
Surely we want to make a good impression on people arriving in our island be they buisness people or tourists.
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Paul Le P, there was nothing wrong with the old terminal though. It worked!
J, I really don’t think people bringing business to our island are swayed by the quality of the airport. Let’s face it, if that was the case anyone flying into Heathrow would refuse to do business in the UK!
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When I fly in at hyperspeed, I always stop by at the airport just to marvel at the space.
Meanwhile, another shop shuts, another scandal breaks, another politician spurks forth gonk.
Yeah, they’re bringing in that business that improves our quality of life! What a success!
Let’s stop knocking the States, everything they do is great!
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Can somebody explain to me why our runway proposal is costing 80M to perform similar work to what John lennon airport in liverpool are about to undertake for 10M??
Double the cost perhaps, but 8 times !!!!
Sounds just like the incinerator, Jamaica get 1 for about 60M, ours is half the size of that one and we are quoted 90M.
Is anybody asking these questions other than you dave??
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Yes, the Man, I believe I can. I shall use the skill widely known as “reading”.
In addition to the runway work there is extensive work needed on the:
RESAs (at each end)
Leveling of gradients
Rest of pavements (all the concrete bits that weren’t redone when the Terminal was built)
Lighting
Drainage
Not just the runway, ya see? Then you add to that the quite impressive hikes in cost due to our location (phone Ronez and a concrete company and ask how much a tonne of concrete costs – make sure you’re sitting down first!).
Ta-da.
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