PROTEST groups are springing up all over the country as people get angrier and more frustrated with the amount of passenger jets flying over their communities.
PROTEST groups are springing up all over the country as people get angrier and more frustrated with the amount of passenger jets flying over their communities.
It is not just in Suffolk where people are concerned at the huge increases in air traffic over the past few years - around 1,200 planes a day currently criss-cross the county - and the threat of it doubling in the next two decades.
More than 25 organisations have been set up - including two in Suffolk - against the positioning of noisy flightpaths over homes, and to fight plans to expand airports and build extra runways.
There are several groups battling against proposals to expand Heathrow, but also ones against possible development at places such as Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester and Manston.
South Suffolk Air Traffic Action Group and Save Our Silence in mid Suffolk are both battling to ensure new airspace will not put holding stacks near towns and villages and to alter jet routes.
The Evening Star has relaunched its Air Fair campaign to challenge air traffic management company NATS, the Civil Aviation Authority and government to do the right thing - and create a fairer system.
Authorities are not being urged to get rid of flights but to “spread the load” and redesign some routes to cut the numbers of aircraft on certain corridors - not every flightpath - but to move the airliners north and south on the several miles-wide flightpaths rather than keeping them on a central line all the time over certain communities.
With NATS saying its new proposals are to be unveiled in the autumn, now is the time for people to join the protest - and ensure Suffolk's peace and tranquillity is not ruined further.
Join the Evening Star's campaign today - let us know how the planes are affecting your family. Are jets driving you mad? Should the number of planes be cut and flightpaths changed - do you think “spread the load” to get quiet weekends is a good idea? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk
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