Conservation group the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC) has launched an online forum showcasing what it says are key worries about expansion at the airport.
GACC has launched the Do You Care? Campaign with a Facebook site.
GACC chairman Brendon Sewill said: “With the growing concern about the implications of what a new Gatwick runway will mean to our countryside, infrastructure, green fields, homes and rural economy of Sussex, Surrey and Kent, GACC is inviting local people to use the site as a forum.”
Mr Sewill of Stan Hill, Charlwood, said: “We hope that we can answer questions and concerns and help the public to understand the huge impact an airport the size of Heathrow would have on the Home Counties by providing independent information.”
He said: “During the year ahead, we will be putting forward a very strong case to save our area from being transformed to what Heathrow surrounding areas are today.”
Citing the recent storms, Mr Sewill said Gatwick had had three flood warnings over the past six weeks, and said this put a question mark over the wisdom of building another runway “in the floodplains.”
He also attacked the notice given in the run-up to Christmas on alterations to the noise plan for Gatwick, the consultation on altering flight paths, the consultation on potential increases in night flights, and the recent Airport Commission report by Sir Howard Davies.
Stressing the need for the new GACC online forum to help meet residents' “growing concern,”, Mr Sewill added GACC volunteer members had worked “tirelessly to make sense of the huge documents produced on aviation.”
GACC is the main environmental body concerned with Gatwick and has as members nearly 100 borough, district and parish councils and environmental groups, covering about a 20-mile radius from the airport.
A voluntary association founded in 1968, GACC has as its goals a steady reduction in noise and pollution from the airport, and other key aims including the protection of the environment around Gatwick, and keeping the airport within its present boundaries.
For more information on the Do You Care? Campaign visit: www.facebook.com/doyoucaregatwick and Twitter.com/gaccgatwick. Website: www.gacc.org.uk
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