Feeling the real cost of flying

7.06.56pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 31st Mar 2008

John Batchelor with members of the Balsham Ward Focus Team at Wratting Common RAF memorial

When residents were woken by bombers taking off from local airfields like Wratting Common in 1943 they were pleased. The RAF was vital to our future. But continual disturbance by aircraft today is quite different. We face the threat of severe noise from planes using Stansted. There's a plan to put one of the main queuing sites right over our area. You can read all about it by going to: www.consultation.nats.co.uk/text/15/cambridge.html.

If the noise impact of modern day flying is bad, its effect on global warming is even worse. But the Government refuses to take it seriously. Alistair Darling committed the Government to Stansted expansion in the Budget.

Major airport expansion is an environmental nonsense. The new tax on aircraft movements needs to be higher. And the money raised should be invested in a high speed rail network. Other Europe countries are getting passengers out of the air and on to rail by building new high-speed lines. Why not Britain? And maybe we will have to accept that in future we simply won't be able to travel as much as we do now.