Crawley Needs A&E Services Back!

Crawley Hospital used to be a fully functional Hospital that provided many services for the local people, as I mentioned before I was born in Crawley Hospital and had a few operations as a child in Jumbo Ward which still sticks in my mind as a fantastic ward! On top of this I also required the services of Accident & Emergency at the hospital as a youngster before it became a walk in center.

In 2004 many of the services at Crawley Hospital were closed down and merged with East Surrey Hospital which I have long thought was a huge mistake and as I have got older I realise this more on every occasion that I visit the hospital.

The first thing here is that Crawley was planned as a new town and the idea is that it would continue to grow over the years and so would the infra structure to support the Town as it continued to grow.

Now before I begin I should state that both my children were born at East Surrey and they were excellent my thoughts on the hospital do not reflect on the staff who are excellent and work incredibly hard.

Now on to my points as to why Crawley needs & deserves its own Hospital!

Location - One of the biggest issues I have with East Surrey Hospital no matter how trivial this may sound its in a different county altogether than Crawley, anyone that has ever driven to East Surrey will know that the traffic conditions can be beyond a joke at times and certainly the crossroads outside the hospital are dangerous and difficult to cross let alone how it must be trying to get an Ambulance across the road in an Emergency and the fact the road that leads down to the crossroads always has cars parked on either side of the road surely this should be restricted to make sure the road is passable for Ambulances as lets not forget this can be a matter of Life & Death! Even the distance between Crawley and East Surrey Hospital is to far for people living on the side of Crawley nearest Horsham its even further so surely a centralised hospital in Crawley would make more sense. I have personal experience of this as when my Father collapsed due to internal bleeding he never stood a chance and by the time he arrived at East Surrey there was nothing that could be done for him.

Growth Of The Town - Now in 2004 when the A&E Department was closed at Crawley the town was substantially smaller than it is now, if you think about the number of dwellings that have been created in the last 10 years just in Crawley alone (Pembroke Park, Kilnwood Vale, Forge Wood, Buchans Mead, The office blocks at First Choice House, Stoner House, The Old DSS Building and The Old Doosan Babcock building in the town centre being converted to flats.) These are just some in Crawley consider the scope of East Surrey (Crawley, Horsham, Horley, Gatwick Airport, Redhill & Reigate). This has created significantly more demand for the Hospital at East Surrey and as some of the ones mentioned above are completed more demand will be there for the services and to my eye nothing has been done at East Surrey to expand or cater for this increase in catchment.

Gatwick Airport - Lets take into consideration the fact there is a major international airport on our doorstep which is great and even before we get into the debate about the expansion of the Airport in the event of a major incident at the Airport then surely we need 2 major hospitals to deal with the aftermath of such an event (Which fingers crossed never happens).

The bottom line is this surely Crawley has the demand to need a major hospital and should be working to make this happen, what I find sad is that it all comes down to money rather than saving lives! There have been many plans over the years to construct a new hospital which have never amounted to much and I know Henry Smith is working to try and restore services at Crawley Hospital which I fully back and was pleased to hear that there are now more Doctors and Nurses working there but the simple fact is until the services are restored that were taken away it will never be enough. Crawley residents must surely pay enough National Insurance to be able to pay for a Hospital!

I for one would welcome the opportunity for my Grandchildren to be born at Crawley Hospital!

Crawley To Loose A Fire Engine Unless Public Act!

So in September 2014 the powers that be at West Sussex County Council decided in their infinite wisdom that in order to cut the budget of the County by £1.6 Million that one of the ways to do this was to remove the 3rd Fire Engine from Crawley and 10 retained Fire Fighters.

Now this seems completely crazy for 2 main reasons which are detailed below:

1st Main Reason - Crawley's Fire Service are at the heart of an expanding town in Crawley and the outskirts with new properties popping up on a regular basis not to mention the huge development of homes at Kilnwood Vale that will fall under their remit once completed so how can the logic possibly be that a crucial Life Saving piece of equipment is to be removed from an expanding town? 
Not so long ago plans were being drawn up to move the Fire Station and Ambulance Station to a purpose built facility opposite Cheals Garden Center now the reality is that unless this is successfully challenged the 3rd engine will be taken away.
One other thought on this point is that I seem to have read about a lot more house fires in Crawley in the past 12 months than ever before so surely to take it back to basics and as crude as it sounds the Demand is there so we need to have the Supply.

2nd Main Reason - As I have mentioned in this blog a few times now Crawley is heavily reliant on Gatwick Airport and in turn the Airport is reliant on the town. In the event of an emergency Crawley Fire Service are the ones that turn up to support the Airport's own fire service and have done this for many years and were present just a few weeks ago when the Virgin flight had to land minus a set of wheels, if we take an appliance away this would mean less service for the public if they are having to attend a full scale emergency at Gatwick this is before you even start taking into account the amount of major fires they already assist with in other areas of West Sussex.

The simple fact is this! Crawley is an expanding town as it was always designed to be that was the purpose of the New Towns program so our infrastructure should be growing not being dismantled! My view on this is the same with or without the re development of Gatwick.

West Sussex County Council are officials elected by US the people that pay the tax that pay for these services, take into account how many new homes have gone up in Crawley alone and the amount of tax ££££'s this brings in before thinking about the rest of West Sussex? There most be more money than before to pay for these services! Surely the extra council tax from Kilnwood Vale alone would pay to keep the 3rd fire engine? 

West Sussex County Council are virtually invisible I had no idea until recently how important they were to the services in Crawley and I do not feel this is made clear to Voters in the run up to the West Sussex elections, the fact is it should be a Democracy that works for the people and at the moment its not working for Crawley and as nobody is interested in soliciting the views of the very people who elect them in the first place on crucial issues like this we are left with no choice but to force our opinion on them!

The Runway Problem Is Of The Governments Own Making!

I have been thinking a lot about the second runway problem at Gatwick since writing my last post in what can only be described as sheer anger when West Sussex County Council decided to vote against the runway which was then followed promptly by Crawley Borough Council deciding not to back the Runway.

The Airport Commission was set up as it was decided that runway capacity in the South Of England was not adequate now or moving forward in the future, they came to a few conclusions some of which I do agree with and others I do not. Below I have assessed some options in my own mind and thought I would share my findings and why I think the Government are responsible for some of these problems.

London City Airport - Is a small inner London Airport which can only operate smaller aircraft and is really centered around people shuttling in and out for business and really presents no option for expansion or growth now or in the future.

Stansted Airport - Was assessed by the Airport Commission and was deemed in December 2013 as not needing a new runway before 2050 where as we need additional runway capacity at either Heathrow or Gatwick to be operational by 2030.

Heathrow Airport - Now Heathrow has long been the main airport for London for scheduled serviced flights there are no Charter or Low Cost flights that operate from Heathrow, now based on Terminal 5 and the redevelopment of Terminal 2 there is clearly an area for expansion here and I would assume that its only a matter of time before it does receive a 3rd runway however this would cause major disruption to the M25 which is fairly horrendous at the best of times without having major roadworks to accommodate the runway.

Gatwick Airport - Gatwick has long been the worlds busiest single runway airport and ever since I have been able to remember it has been seen as almost a given that the 2nd runway would happen at some time however the existence of some kind of agreement with residents in 1979 caused some confusion but on the whole made it difficult to build a 2nd runway before 2019, the agreement is probably with the very people who are now opposing the growth of Gatwick. Gatwick is slightly unique in a sense that it is a mixed traffic airport and supports both scheduled, Charter & Low Cost flights.

Boris Island - Now this was a ridiculous idea proposed to build an entirely new airport in the Thames Estuary on reclaimed land much the same as they did in Hong Kong to create a new airport. This was completely the kind of forward thinking that we needed but would be made impossible by the building cost and the fact that in return for this airport the Government would want the land that Heathrow & Gatwick stands on, so who would run this airport as in 2008 the Government forced BAA to sell Gatwick & Stansted among others so now the airports are all in competition with each other you can not have 3 different airport operators trying to operate 1 airport.

Now its worth picking this point up a bit further, the Airport infrastructure in this country used to work as BAA owned Gatwick & Heathrow and they had different business models to suit the locations and services but it was the Government decided this was a monopoly and that they needed to be sold off so they could compete with one another rather than co exist as they had for the last 50 odd years. This was not a bad idea however the problem you now have is 2 businesses that want to expand and could be held back by the very Government that forced them in to this situation in the first place. The reality is that Gatwick is already behind Heathrow in terms of size if a 3rd runway was awarded to them and a 2nd not to Gatwick you will effectively kill Gatwick off as an airport and that means that we could see the death of the airport. The common sense approach here says that Gatwick should get the 2nd runway to fully be able to compete as a business with its biggest rival in Heathrow.

Now along side all these options they have been assessing to improve runway access in the South East of England in the amount of time we have seen the death of an airport in Kent. Manston was always a regional airport but is there no possibility of doing something with this to allow flights to re commence instead of allowing it to be turned into housing. It could even become a cargo only airport like Prestwick in Scotland there has to be a place for Manston somewhere in the new Airport infrastructure.

The biggest problem with all of this is that we are already years behind the rest of the world with our Airports and this delaying is only making it further behind and will continue to be that way even once the construction of this or these runways, look at what Dubai have achieved in the time we have stood still!

Gatwick Needs a Second Runway It Has Lost It's Soul!

Whilst I agree with the Second Runway at Gatwick Airport I do not necessarily support everything the owners have done with the Airport since taking over from BAA.

I grew up around the Airport as my Dad worked there for 30 years starting with a bottom of the run job for an Airline before working his way into management there and as a child we spent a lot of time at the Airport and considered it one of our favourite days out. The airport was a vibrant little place almost like a city of people not only flying away but also the people that worked at the Airport.

Gatwick use to house the Village in the South Terminal which had many shops and restaurants and in the North Terminal was The Avenue which had much the same layout and I used to love going there with my Dad. We would go for a McDonalds and then take the Monorail across to the South Terminal and go into Skyview on the roof to watch the Aircraft for a while or visit the Nose of the Comet or take the tour of the Aircraft that had been placed on the roof for visitors.

When I turned 16 I began working in one of the shops in the South Terminal Departure Lounge and when on breaks myself and other staff would visit some of the Restaurants & Shops or head up to Skyview for a coffee on a good clear day.

Since the sale of Gatwick Airport I regularly fly out from either terminal and I have to say I have now got to the point that I try to arrive as close to my flight as possible as simply they have very little in way of shops or restaurants that even remotely interest me and everything mentioned above is no longer there, a lot of the shops are to high brow for passengers on Budget or Holiday airlines and the airport seem to think they are Terminal 5 at Heathrow.

The simple fact of this is that with the rise of Budget Airlines and the death of Long Haul scheduled services from the Airport that the face of the airport has changed and I for one do not feel this is for the best. The face of this change stands outside the North Terminal as a constant reminder in the shape of the 700 bedroom Premier Inn just a few feet away from a Sofitel which when built was designed to cater for Business passengers as (to my mind away) Premier Inn are aimed at the Budget Traveller.

So I do not think the management are always right on the development of "Our Airport" but I genuinely hope that the Second Runway would bring back Scheduled services to compete with easyJet and hopefully see shops and restaurants reopen, I can only imagine whats going to happen moving forward with British Airways leaving the North Terminal (Ironically they have been ousted from the terminal built to serve them by easyJet) I am sure some of the expensive shops in the Departure Lounge will not be to happy about this.

One of my biggest annoyances is in the shape of the lack of being able to be collected from outside the terminals and people forced to park, this is an absolute joke every airport in the world I have visited has a collection point except for Gatwick which is clearly just out to pay for its new car parks!

Gatwick Second Runway....Opposed By Council! Well Done Council More Common Sense!

I have lived in Crawley all my life and have grown up with the Airport on my doorstep and at one time or another most of my family have been employed at the airport and even more relatives who have been employed in Crawley as a consequence of having a major international airport on our doorstep.

Gatwick needs to expand to bring Crawley back to its former glory as I remember a town that was vibrant before Gatwick started dwindling down and we have a need in this country to expand our airports I travel Europe widely with my job and I have been in less busy airports that have 2 runways!

The council have annoyed me by opposing the second runway at Gatwick as they are not looking at what this would bring to the region and they are opposing this based on the infrastructure but surely the second runway would mean that the infrastructure would be upgraded to accommodate this. The jobs this would bring would mean more people living in the town and paying council tax so I don't see the problem (I will address the residents issues shortly). Everything takes so long these days to get anything started in this country let alone get it to the stage of completion. I have always found it strange that Gatwick is not more of a hub for Crawley bus routes to ensure workers have easy access to the airport when I started working at the airport in 1999 there was no way of me getting there except for a taxi it was not until 2000 that metrobus introduced Gatwick Direct and now 15 years later the number 10 has to go through town and the 200 is from Horsham but Tilgate and Furnace Green remain completely u reachable by bus to the busiest single runway airport in the world. Would this be allowed in any other forward thinking country? I read a comment earlier that said we are meant to be a democracy so where is the vote for local people to decide on a second runway rather than a bunch of councilors deciding what it is people want/need!

As for the residents they are beginning to frustrate me equally with the concerns over noise and aircraft movements. Firstly there can not be to many of these residents that didn't move into their homes before the existing airport was built and more importantly probably go on holiday and like the fact Gatwick is on there doorstep and use it when it suits them! I get that if you live on the flight path that noise is an issue but guess what you could move if it annoys you that much and maybe I am imagining it but aircraft have got substantially quieter since the days of DC10's and Tristar's taking off from Gatwick and will only continue to be more noise and fuel efficient as development of new aircraft continues.

I live near Gatwick and to be honest do not even notice the noise anymore bizarrely I notice more when they stop taking off for a runway closure or thunderstorm then I do with take offs every few minutes, I travel regularly and love having the airport on our doorstep.

That said Gatwick Airport are not perfect I feel the new owners have ripped the sole out of the place and even closing the drop off area to people being collected and having the cheek to charge local residents for the privilege is a real Liberty if you ask me as even the mighty Heathrow allow people to be picked up.

Surely though this is all a of the Governments own making let's not forget it was them that made BAA sell airports off and what they did was cause Gatwick and Heathrow to be competitors rather than sister airports and now they want to hold one back from competing on a level playing field, I can not imagine this happening in any other business!

Ultimately I feel this should be something that goes ahead and I think the airport should consider funds towards a new Crawley hospital as surely we should have more than one major hospital near an airport in the event of an accident East Surrey has enough new patients with all the housing being built.

There you go that's my 2p's worth not that it will matter unless more people use there voice to force change and a vote!