Residents living the closest to Luton Airport have been plagued by holiday parkers for years. The problem is caused (100%) by the Borough Council’s own airport – yet the solution offered to local people is to charge residents for a residents’ parking scheme.
Manchester Airport, which is owned by a number of local authorities, pays for their residents’ parking scheme. In the light of this, the opposition party on Luton Borough Council – with the support of SLAE – tabled a motion that Luton Borough Council request that its airport and the airport operating company fund the £80,000 cost of setting up the scheme, rather than charging each resident £50 per car.
Despite the Council claiming that it wants its airport to be viewed as a good neighbour, and that the airport helps fund community projects well away from the airport, the ruling party voted against making a request to its airport to fund this local community project.
In a deliberate act of putting two fingers up at the airport’s local residents, the airport directors (who are also councillors for wards well away from the airport) refused to declare an interest and voted against the local community. This emphasizes the fact that the airport really doesn’t care about the misery its operations cause and has no intention of financially helping out the community.
The money committed so far to airport expansion projects including the Dart rail link, dual carriageway and Development Consent Order, is around £450 million. The cost of the residents’ parking scheme is estimated at around £80,000 yet the Council and airport directors still said no.