News and Events

 

 

Stansted Airport…..the latest news.

DETERMINED OPPOSITION TO AIRPORT EXPANSION  

If BAA thought they were in for an easy ride at the on-going public enquiry into the Stansted Airport expansion then they were badly wrong.   The opposition is united and determined to get the message across – that further growth of the airport would have a serious and long-lasting effect on the beauty and tranquillity of the Essex countryside.  

Our representatives – John Drake and Suzanne Walker – have been putting the CPRE case – and a very effective one it is!   The 13-page “Proof of Evidence” document is an impressive and well-researched argument and is available elsewhere on this site   CPRE are one of the organisations represented at the enquiry.  Others include Stop Stansted Expansion, Friends of the Earth, Essex Wildlife Trust and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings  

BAA is seeking unlimited passenger use of the airport’s single runway, currently capped at 25 million passengers per annum, which could result in the eventual doubling passenger throughput and an increase in the number of flights from 192,000 (latest 12 months total)  to 264,000 annually. 		campaigning against Stanstead

Permission for the application was refused by Uttlesford District Council in November last year and the Public Inquiry will hear BAA’s appeal against that decision.   

The picture shows John and Suzanne at the enquiry – with the banner that was made by Suzanne’s grandson! 

To read the full report click here

CONGRATULATIONS

Jill Hinds, one of our long-serving volunteers, has been recognised for many years public service in and around her home in Kelvedon.  She will soon be meeting the Queen to receive the MBE announced in the New Year’s Honours.

For 28 years Jill has been the Kelvedon Parish Council Clerk.  She is also involved with the Kelvedon Players Amateur dramatic group.  Her experience and knowledge have been invaluable to the work of CPREssex.  Jill is responsible for organising events to spread the CPRE message across the county – including Opera in the Orchard and visits to various gardens - and is a member of the Executive Committee and chair of the Publicity Sub-Committee.

80TH ANNIVERSARY TREE PLANTING

It was on 7th December, 1926 that a group of countryside campaigners including Professor Sir Patrick Abercrombie, the pioneering town planner and Neville Chamberlain, then Minister of Health and later Prime Minister, met to launch the Council for the Preservation of Rural England.  Now we're 80 years old. With the Thames Gateway proposals, the East of England Plan and now the new Kate Barker recommendations which threaten the Green Belt,  the issues we face today are just as challenging as they were back in the 1920s.

To mark the occasion,  Lord Petre, the Lord Lieutenant of Essex, joined with our chairman, Peter Chillingworth (right) to plant a tree at the CPRE Copse, Thames Chase, Cranham. 
 

CHAIRMAN INTERVIEWED ON WALLASEA PROJECT

Channel Four News interviewed chairman Peter Chillingworth on the day that 250 acres of farmland at Wallasea Island were reclaimed by the sea.

The £7.5 million Wallasea Wetlands Creation Project is a DEFRA scheme that reverses the trend of building sea defences to protect low-lying coastal areas,  especially around the East Anglian coastline.  Giant earth moving machines made a 100 metre breach in the sea wall - and for the first time in centuries the flood was a welcome sight for the engineers.

Global warming and increasingly higher tides are the reason behind this change of policy.  The cost of holding back the sea was proving just too great so Wallasea Farms Ltd and DEFRA have been working together to create an environmentally-friendly wetland area which will be a wild life haven.

Now the River Crouch will spill into fields which for years have been fertile arable land. Parts of flooded area will revert to being a salt marsh and this is likely to attract a variety of bird life.   The scheme also safeguards other parts of Wallasea Island from flooding, notably the Essex Marina, the Baltic Shipping dock and a few homes.


As Peter said in his interview, CPREssex welcomes the DEFRA scheme - but he added a warning.  If there are similar proposals around the coast in the future then farmers should be adequately compensated for the lost of land.

Meanwhile, Essex gives up some more land to the sea - and for the moment it's a cost-effective way of preventing an even greater flood disaster.