You couldn’t make it up. Luton Borough Council are complaining that their concerns over an M1 to A6 link road proposed by Central Beds Council have been ignored while at the same time ignoring complaints from residents and other councils about their own proposal to double the size of Luton Airport. The council in 2020 has even instigated a judicial review to ensure Central Bedfordshire Council has “fully considered the impact”.
Councillor Paul Castleman (Labour) told the Council Executive that the scheme will “increase air pollution resulting in a negative impact on health and well-being”. This comes from a councillor whose ward sits close to the flight path of the airport. He later went on to say “we have no option other than to proceed with a judicial review”.
Councillor Tom Shaw (Labour) complained that extra traffic would run through the residential areas of Marsh Farm, which is an area to the north of Luton.
“What Central Beds has done is completely ignored all the objections that were raised over the last 18 months to 2 years.”
“You can imagine in the mornings what it’s going to be like with thousands of cars coming through one of our main council estates in the town.”
Grand words from the councillors and Luton Borough Council – so maybe they should start to look at the impact that their own proposals will have on Stopsley, Crawley and Wigmore wards?
When we wrote to Councillor Castleman and Councillor Tom Shaw about their comments they both refused to reply or engage with us. This speaks volumes.
The council proposes to use these residential areas to get traffic from the A1M to a proposed second terminal on Wigmore Park that will be decimated by a new link road that breaches the newly adopted local. With the controlling group at the council not holding a single ward seat in the 3 wards most affected by airport expansion, the residents feel they have been ignored while at the same time the hypocritical council complains that it is being ignored regarding the north of the town.