West Sussex County Council will be debating expansion at Gatwick Airport next week. The content of a letter sent to all County Councillors is shown below:
"There appears to have been an important omission in the
debate regarding a possible second runway at Gatwick Airport. That omission
concerns consideration of the ability of hospitals, the emergency services,
local authorities etc. to cope with an aircraft accident, or other major
incident at the Airport.
I believe that the Council should insist on a second runway
only being permitted if additional funding is given to those services that have
to respond to major incidents at the airport. This is just as important as the
infrastructure to support the airport. That funding could come from the airport
operator or the Government, but to proceed without it would be reckless.
It is quite clear that the ambulance service and hospitals
are struggling to cope with winter pressures, so their potential to also cope
with hundreds of casualties from an air crash must be in serious doubt. The
Police have also suffered staffing cuts that affect their ability to deal with
major emergencies. The ability of WSCC Social Care to provide support to
uninjured survivors and relatives of the injured or deceased is another vital
service that has been affected by budget cuts.
The latest aircraft using Gatwick include the Airbus A380,
versions of which carry over 550 passengers, with versions carrying 900
passengers being developed. When you consider that the aircraft involved in the
Kegworth air crash in 1989 was only carrying 118 passengers, you get an idea of
the significantly greater demand on local services if a larger aircraft crashes
at Gatwick. At Kegworth 82 people were seriously injured and it took over seven
hours to free them all from the wreckage. The local authority fire service
needed 22 fire engines and over 100 firefighters at the incident.
It should also be borne in mind that the Civil Aviation
Authority say that planning should consider more than one aircraft being
involved in an accident, and the surroundings of the Airport should also be
taken in to account. With a busy commuter line at the end of the runway, an
aircraft collision with a crowded commuter train must also be considered.
Casualties could run in to the thousands.
More specifically for West Sussex County Council, cuts and
crewing difficulties have made the fire and rescue service much less able to
cope than in previous years. The emergency landing at Gatwick Airport at the
end of December showed that, instead of resources increasing to cope with
increased risk, they have actually been reduced. The time taken to get
resources to the airport has increased significantly, as they have to be sent
from stations much further away. The proposed 2015-16 cuts will make this even
worse.
When aircraft carried fewer passengers, WSFRS were able to
get the full response to the airport by sending fire engines from stations no
further away than Horsham. However, at the December incident fewer fire engines
had to come from as far away as Bognor Regis, Shoreham and Worthing, with some taking
well over an hour to arrive. With the potential for several hundred trapped and
injured casualties, that is just not acceptable.
It should also be of concern to Councillors that the
pre-planned response has been reduced. A public inquiry would not accept that
an emergency service, given notice of a potential crash, did not use the time
to assemble sufficient resources to deal with a crash. The current response
would have been inadequate for smaller aircraft, so it is wholly inadequate for
today’s aircraft.
Please note that the Airport Fire Service depend heavily on
support from West Sussex and Surrey Fire & Rescue Services. The Airport
Fire Service is only required to provide a full response to crashed aircraft
within the airport boundary, and a reduced response to crashed aircraft very
near to the airport. They have no responsibility for building fires, chemical
incidents, road or rail crashes on or near the airport. They, and the rescue
work at an air crash, are a statutory duty of West Sussex County Council.
I would urge you and your colleagues to properly consider
this aspect before deciding on your recommendation regarding expansion at the
Airport.
No comments:
Post a Comment