York | Archive | 2005 | March | 2
From the Evening Press, first published Wednesday 2nd Mar 2005.
JUMBO jets could regularly fly over southern York if new hangars are allowed at Elvington Airfield, villagers claimed today.
Heslington Parish Trust claimed that Elvington Park Ltd's "horrifying" hangar proposals are a surreptitious attempt to allow a dramatic increase in aircraft movements from the airfield.
Chairman Nick Allen said this could lead eventually to commercial airport levels, with very large and noisy aircraft landing and taking off.
"There is no justification for this as the area is well served by airports and we will be urging the city council to reject the application," he said.
Heslington Parish Council also claimed that fully-laden, wide-bodied jets could regularly use the airfield, with a flight path over the southern edge of York, if the six-bay hangar and an additional single hangar are granted planning permission by City of York Council.
Parish council chairman Richard Frost said a masterplan by Elvington Park stated the case for Elvington becoming a major regional commercial airport, including large jets, and made an unjustified assumption this would be good for York.
"There is no mention of the horrendous noise pollution which would affect York City and many villages for miles around. Far from making York attractive to business, it would be likely to destroy the precious environment which makes York so attractive."
The Evening Press reported last week how Elvington Park wanted to build the hangars, even though it accepted they constituted inappropriate development in the green belt. The company warned there was a £2 million backlog of repairs on the runway, and York risked losing its aerodrome at Elvington if the scheme did not get the go-ahead.
Elvington Parish Council has registered strong objections to the "unjustified" proposals, claiming there are no exceptional circumstances to justify such a "large-scale and intrusive development."
It said an environmental impact assessment was essential, and added: "The local communities are wholly supportive of developing activities at Elvington Airfield for the benefit of the region , providing that this is not unreasonably intrusive to our local communities."
Elvington Park spokesman Ian Wormald said today denied that the application was in any way associated with wide-bodied jets, saying: "It is nonsense to link the application, for a low profile hangar, with wide-bodied jets when a wide bodied jet is at least three times higher, ten times wider and longer than the bay space inside."
Updated: 11:03 Wednesday, March 02, 2005
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