POSTER CAMPAIGN
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
BIH have announced that they are currently exploring the best sites to relocate to. DISPLAY A POSTER AND CAR STICKER to demonstrate the opposition there is to helicopters flying from Land’s End Aerodrome.
To obtain your poster/car stickers e-mail leaag.group@gmail.com
Thursday 27 May 2010
Thursday 13 May 2010
CHAIRMAN'S LETTER PUBLISHED IN CORNISHMAN 13/04/2010
I find myself in something of a quandary with Kevin Patterson. No sane person can argue with his description of our coastline, whose rugged beauty 'compares with anything on the planet'. His eulogy to ' the granite cliffs, the rocky coves, the spectacular clear waters teeming with life.' The fine old market town of Penzance and all that it represents.
Presuming he is the same Kevin that has previously written in support of Sainsbury's arrival I'm confused by this follow up. How Penzance will be improved by adding the concrete and asphalt of a fifteen acre supermarket site on an area that at least has the merit of bringing a splash of grass to the main approach into the town I can't understand. And why this town with a population of 20,000 and six existing supermarkets needs a seventh, or eighth if Morrison's plans are realised, is beyond me
Further if, by providing the new Sainsbury's store, the result is the move of the Noisy Smelly 'flying all day' helicopters to Lands End Aerodrome in the heart of the spectacular scenery he rightly loves so much, it looks like a double whammy.
Speaking to the environment agency, it appears that the whole of the heliport site was once a refuse dump in which some rather unpleasant materials were tipped. If correct it will take considerable work to seal or remove them. I don't know it the local bush telegraph has the story right but it says that when the heliport was first built in 1964 they had to excavate down to 18 feet and back fill before they could start building. If the same still applied, St Sainsbury would need to move about a quarter of a million cubic metres of material, transport it out of Cornwall, because it seems there would be no where to tip it here, and then bring in the same amount of back fill. Months of heavy transport possibly carrying unhealthy materials past every site bordering the A30
And then, as a final blow, they'd cover the water absorbent grass of the heliport with tarmac and roofs on a site at least half of which is high risk flood plain...
I can totally sympathise with his desire to move the disturbance of the helicopters away but the truth is that the only reason they have such a successful operation [although barely profitable if Tony Jones is to be believed] is because they operate from the Penzance transport hub.
Plus any move away from there would directly and indirectly contravene over fifty of the local plan planning guidelines and cause environmental havoc to a huge tract of West Penwith's most beautiful countryside, and the businesses that rely on its tranquillity to bring in their tourists. And I'm sure he wouldn't want that either.
Tony White. St Buryan
Presuming he is the same Kevin that has previously written in support of Sainsbury's arrival I'm confused by this follow up. How Penzance will be improved by adding the concrete and asphalt of a fifteen acre supermarket site on an area that at least has the merit of bringing a splash of grass to the main approach into the town I can't understand. And why this town with a population of 20,000 and six existing supermarkets needs a seventh, or eighth if Morrison's plans are realised, is beyond me
Further if, by providing the new Sainsbury's store, the result is the move of the Noisy Smelly 'flying all day' helicopters to Lands End Aerodrome in the heart of the spectacular scenery he rightly loves so much, it looks like a double whammy.
Speaking to the environment agency, it appears that the whole of the heliport site was once a refuse dump in which some rather unpleasant materials were tipped. If correct it will take considerable work to seal or remove them. I don't know it the local bush telegraph has the story right but it says that when the heliport was first built in 1964 they had to excavate down to 18 feet and back fill before they could start building. If the same still applied, St Sainsbury would need to move about a quarter of a million cubic metres of material, transport it out of Cornwall, because it seems there would be no where to tip it here, and then bring in the same amount of back fill. Months of heavy transport possibly carrying unhealthy materials past every site bordering the A30
And then, as a final blow, they'd cover the water absorbent grass of the heliport with tarmac and roofs on a site at least half of which is high risk flood plain...
I can totally sympathise with his desire to move the disturbance of the helicopters away but the truth is that the only reason they have such a successful operation [although barely profitable if Tony Jones is to be believed] is because they operate from the Penzance transport hub.
Plus any move away from there would directly and indirectly contravene over fifty of the local plan planning guidelines and cause environmental havoc to a huge tract of West Penwith's most beautiful countryside, and the businesses that rely on its tranquillity to bring in their tourists. And I'm sure he wouldn't want that either.
Tony White. St Buryan
Monday 10 May 2010
IMPORTANT NOTICE
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Sunday May 23, 3.00pm. St Just Methodist Church, Chapel St. St. Just
This is a time for action and consolidation.
Bring along as many people as you can.
Sunday May 23, 3.00pm. St Just Methodist Church, Chapel St. St. Just
This is a time for action and consolidation.
Bring along as many people as you can.
Saturday 1 May 2010
Letter to ‘The Cornishman’ published 29th April.
From comments in the press and those circulated, for example, by Penzance Chamber of Commerce, it now seems clear that British International Helicopters will be flying from Land’s End Aerodrome when they leave their present site. The aerodrome lies within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and abuts a designated Heritage Coast. Presently there are 10 Cornish choughs being monitored by the RSPB between Pendeen and Gwennap Head. Thousands of visitors enjoy a variety of recreational activities in this beautiful part of Cornwall. We are told that BIH are compelled to realise the capital on their Eastern Green site, but at what cost to this region?
The regular drone of aircraft from Land’s End Aerodrome is a common sound along the coastal plain between Bartinney Downs and Whitesand Bay. If BIH also fly from the airport, they could be approximately three times as loud as the fixed wing, taking off and landing about every twenty minutes during high season. Such an imposition, of the same noise and noxious emissions that the people of Eastern Green and Gulval currently endure, added to the existing aircraft noise experienced at Land’s End, needs urgent formal appraisal.
This is not something new. In February 2009 the Land Use Planning Adviser for the National Trust asked Penwith District Council if they would be calling for an Environmental Impact Assessment concerning Westward Airways application for runway lighting, as the aerodrome was in a ‘sensitive area’ due to its AONB designation. In July 1997 the Government Office for the South West, ruled that Land’s End Aerodrome needed an EIA concerning their application to extend runways and install lighting. If BIH operate from Land’s End Aerodrome the environmental consequences are likely to be more severe than either of those developments.
Do the Parish Councils of Sennen and St Buryan, St Just Town Council, Cornwall Council, our MP, and the Duke of Cornwall have evidence of the culmination of noise levels and emissions that the BIH move could cause? If not, will they acknowledge their responsibility to the people they serve by calling on BIH to provide an EIA? The significant encroachment on the environment, roads, businesses, residents and tourism that the relocation might cause, deserves nothing less than the rigorous scrutiny an EIA offers.
Caroline Passingham, Kelynack
The regular drone of aircraft from Land’s End Aerodrome is a common sound along the coastal plain between Bartinney Downs and Whitesand Bay. If BIH also fly from the airport, they could be approximately three times as loud as the fixed wing, taking off and landing about every twenty minutes during high season. Such an imposition, of the same noise and noxious emissions that the people of Eastern Green and Gulval currently endure, added to the existing aircraft noise experienced at Land’s End, needs urgent formal appraisal.
This is not something new. In February 2009 the Land Use Planning Adviser for the National Trust asked Penwith District Council if they would be calling for an Environmental Impact Assessment concerning Westward Airways application for runway lighting, as the aerodrome was in a ‘sensitive area’ due to its AONB designation. In July 1997 the Government Office for the South West, ruled that Land’s End Aerodrome needed an EIA concerning their application to extend runways and install lighting. If BIH operate from Land’s End Aerodrome the environmental consequences are likely to be more severe than either of those developments.
Do the Parish Councils of Sennen and St Buryan, St Just Town Council, Cornwall Council, our MP, and the Duke of Cornwall have evidence of the culmination of noise levels and emissions that the BIH move could cause? If not, will they acknowledge their responsibility to the people they serve by calling on BIH to provide an EIA? The significant encroachment on the environment, roads, businesses, residents and tourism that the relocation might cause, deserves nothing less than the rigorous scrutiny an EIA offers.
Caroline Passingham, Kelynack
