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Flights are a menace

THE Advertiser tells me it is read by 62,515 people every day. I wonder how many of those have noticed the presence of low level flights which take place over Swindon seven days a week for most of the daylight hours.

The flights are accompanied by a penetrating drone which invades double glazing and interrupts open air conversations. Summers in the garden are being seriously spoiled.

It is clear no public duty or community function is provided by these flights, unlike police helicopters and air ambulance flights which occupy the same air space.

The flights are over residential areas occupied by thousands of Swindonians. If noise was being produced by a commercial enterprise residents would be complaining and achieving environmental control over the situation.

Two years ago I was asked to sign a petition to have the location and hours of these flights brought under control. Nothing came of that.

So I set about establishing as to which agency issued licences or exercised control over such flights and received the following responses:

Swindon Borough Council: Referred me to Wiltshire Police. Wiltshire Police replied: ‘Flying times and noise of planes do not fall under the remit of the police, contact the Civil Aviation Authority.’

The CAA said: ‘responsibility for aviation policy and aircraft noise matters lies with the Department for Transport. The DfT is involved in measures to ameliorate noise at main airports, and other civil aerodromes and operators are expected to achieve a balance between legitimate needs and the impact their operations have on the local environment’

The DfT said: ‘Aerodromes may have planning agreements in place with their local authority, setting out restrictions as part of the planning process when developing the aerodrome. These may include restrictions on numbers and times of operations and procedures to avoid built up areas. The local council should be able to advise you.’

I then contacted my MP Robert Buckland. He said: ‘I am aware of the situation. Indeed, I have been trying to seek a resolution for years. I am in regular contact with owners of the site, but am very limited in what I can do…’

If I want to add a few square feet to my house I have to undergo the rigours of planning department submissions, technical inspections and consultation with neighbouring residents.

To fly a plane where and when I like over the homes of thousands of people making as much noise as I like, it seems no regulations or controls are in place to stop me.

Noise is an identified pollutant and carries its own health dangers. Emissions of excessive and unnecessary noise are akin to the arrogant actions of rubbish fly tippers.

But more dangerous yet is that it seems that these are the days when profit and pleasure can override environmental and decency values.

Surely 62,515 individuals count for something. If they were votes they would change the politics of Swindon.

More importantly, the expressed dissatisfaction of that number of people regarding the inability of regulatory authorities, the local authority, and MPs to bring an unaccountable profit and pleasure enterprise to heel, would return a degree of semblance of democratic power to us, the mere folk on the ground.

BRUCE ADAIR, via email

Issues smuggled in

DES Morgan poses a question (Adver, Wednesday) about David Cameron’s order to “execute … two extremist fighters” in 2015. Why not here? Des craftily asks.

He knows though that the grounds Cameron gave in the cited case would already be legal grounds for killing “jihadists”, known or not, in the UK. Des is using the word “execute” to smuggle in a completely different issue.

Des also suggests, although it isn’t clear whether he is offering Cameron’s opinion or his own, that UK interventions are about “supporting Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.”

Our interventions have smashed those countries leaving unimaginable misery for the people there, making them fertile ground for the dissemination of terrorism (as predicted by authorities from the M15 to the Stop The War Coalition).

If this is support, God alone knows what aggression would look like.

We have also seen a pathological rash in less cunning letters to the Adver which, mostly by innuendo, seek to point the finger at immigrants in general for the appalling Manchester attack.

This is despite repeated condemnation by Muslim organisations at every level and only serves the ends of the terrorists who want to divide our community.

In the meantime Saudi Arabia is the largest recipient of UK weapons sales.

The same Saudi Arabia that is “primarily responsible for the rise of the extremist Islam that inspires [Isis] terrorists.” according to Britain’s Major-General Jonathan Shaw who retired as assistant Chief of Defence Staff in 2012.

PETER SMITH, Woodside Avenue, Swindon

Traffic lights are a mess

SO WE, sorry, the highways agency on our behalf, have many millions of pounds to alter the road layout at Junction 16 M4.

I have driven as far as Ternopol, in the Ukraine, and the biggest foul- up I have met is the traffic lights that service the hotel/coffee bar system between Junction 16 of the M4, and the Blagrove roundabout.

This is the cause of the unnecessary hold ups for commuters to and from Swindon.

This system should be removed, which I hope will happen during the so-called traffic flow improvement.

Traffic should filter into the stream, go to Blagrove Roundabout and then, if they wish to proceed on the M4, or go west via Royal Wootton Bassett, they should return to the Junction 16 roundabout.

Whoever designed this layout did not have any driving experience.

TERRY LAMBOURNE, Royal Wootton Bassett