Airport Plans "Madness"

The Green Party Councillor, Mark Hood, has attacked what he called Labour's "bonfire of regulations" after news of plans for a new Heathrow runway.

Mark Hood was speaking to West Kent Radio in a live interview on the Friday drivetime programme with Martin Webber.

Mark Hood, who is a Borough and County Councillor, said "it is madness to be going down this route".

The Labour government has said it believes big infrastructure investments will boost economic growth and tax revenue and therefore enable more spending on public services.

Labour expects to push through planning approval for a third runway at Heathrow in this parliament and is expected to allow Gatwick to increase flights by 60% by allowing it to upgrade a stand-by runway.

The government has also this week signalled its approval for a £10 billion road crossing of the Thames, called the Lower Thames Crossing.

Mark Hood said the government should be taxing frequent flyers more to curb air travel demand, while the new Thames crossing would only relieve congestion for a few years before roads were again filled to capacity. 

Mark Hood also rejected Labour's suggestions that aviation's damage to the climate can be offset by using more "sustainable aviation fuels" derived from crops.  He said we had insufficient food security to use crops for aviation fuel.

Mark Hood began the West Kent Radio interview by giving his thoughts on the past week's failure by South East Water to supply fresh water in parts of Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Bidborough.

He said South East Water should have alerted people sooner, so an effort could have been made to eek out supplies to stop the system draining down and creating air locks.

He also said the supply of bottled water should have been managed better.

You can listen to his interview here:

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