Cllr Farooq Qureshi

                                                                                                                                                                        The Lib Dem’s public meeting about the increase in flights over our homes was a huge success.

Cllr Farooq Qureshi, the Liberal Democrats Parliamentary Candidate for Leyton & Wanstead spoke to a packed meeting where it was explained that due to the change in flight paths from Heathrow and the expansion of London City Airport (LCA), there are now more planes flying over our area, causing more noise and more pollution.

Cllr Qureshi said “we’ll join the local campaign groups and other interested parties to fight against this attack on our quality of life”.

Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Caroline Pigeon London Assembly Member and Representatives from FTF and HACAN also spoke at the meeting. Baroness Sarah Ludford and Caroline Pigeon pledged their support for the local groups in their campaign against the expansion of LCA.

As previously reported by the Focus teams across Leyton & Wanstead, the Waltham Forest council failed to respond to the consultation on the expansion master plan and subsequently Newham council granted permission for the expansion without consulting Waltham Forest or Redbridge.

Cllr Qureshi has written to the Cabinet Member for investment and enterprise asking for an explanation about the failure of Waltham Forest council to respond to the original consultation.

We, the Liberal Democrats, took the lead in this campaign against the fights increase and arranged the public meeting which was widely publicised. The meeting was attended by a large number of Lib Dem councillors and activists from Waltham forest and Redbridge. Only two Conservative councillors from Waltham Forest attended but sadly there was no sign of any Labour councillor from either Waltham Forest or Redbridge.

Now it seems that the Labour councillors have also heard the aircraft noise and want to jump on the band wagon.

It would also be good to know if the Conservatives are all on board with us or not? Because, one of the Conservative councillors who attended, circulated an email prior to the meeting stating “The flight noise mostly comes from Heathrow”, whilst his colleague at the meeting seems to agree with us.

We say: “we welcome the idea of a cross party consensus on this very important issue. Lets get together and fight for the rights of the residents of Leyton & Wanstead.”