North Weald update

North Weald still needs our support.
I received this update yesterday.

To All Supporters of the NWAUG

Hello, and a belated Happy New Year to all our Supporters. Here is our latest Newsletter!

RPG 14

As many of you know activities are at a low at the moment as the various recent reports are being collated into the forthcoming Draft RPG 14, which should be published in the next few weeks (and that is why you haven’t heard much from us recently!). The aim of this document is to outline draft proposals by the East of England Regional Assembly for the M11 Corridor from London to Cambridge. Obviously North Weald will feature in this publication!

We see this document as probably the MOST important in the decision making process and when it is published we will be in a far better position to see what the powers that be have in mind for the future of North Weald Airfield.

Once we know the precise details we will be mounting what we think will be the most important part of our Campaign. We will be e-mailing all on the data base with requests for you to start a letter writing campaign on our behalf. You will be pleased to know that the data base now exceeds 1300 people. Details will be sent to you all outlining who we would like you to write to.

As in the past, we will NOT be recommending “Standard” letters or petitions because they do not attract as much recognition as individual letters. This policy has proved to be successful in the past with the letters that you have kindly written. We will of course make salient points available but please do not copy them by rote!

Once the draft report is out we will be back to you, rest assured!

FINANCES

Several Fund Raising activities have taken place recently and we would specifically like to thank the North Weald Firkin Flyers and the Epping and North Weald Model Flying Club for their outstanding generosity. Many other individuals have contributed at the various events last year and we are very grateful to all who have contributed. We will advise further on financial needs as events progress in the future.

OTHER RECENT EVENTS

We were privileged to host Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest MP) last week. She was given a tour of the Airfield (albeit abbreviated!) and attended a very useful meeting with the Airfield Users Group and some other Airfield Operators. The session was very encouraging and she has promised to do all that she can do to support us the future. She was speaking on Essex Radio about her visit to the Airfield and there is good coverage in the local papers.

The Government issued their comments on the SERAS Report recently and in relation to North Weald they pointed out that there would be severe restrictions following their recommendation for a second runway at Stansted. We are actively pursuing this with the Director of Airspace Policy at the CAA and there are some encouraging noises about the continuation of flying at North Weald.

REGISTRATIONS ON THE DATA BASE

If you know anyone who supports the Airfield and has not yet registered with us please encourage them to do so as soon as possible. To those who have registered recently and have not heard from us we do try to acknowledge all registrations personally, but this is sometimes time consuming following a large event. Dave (our Secretary) is in the process of incorporating an automatic system, so we are not ignoring you!

AND FINALLY…

Sorry to write at length, but we do recognise the need to keep you all informed, even though things are a little quiet at present but BE AWARE that WILL change in the next few months!!

Thank you all for your support.

John Buckels, Chairman NWAUG