LETTER: Trying to get our lives back

I found both your letters extremely insulting and condescending, we are very pleased to hear that you have double glazing Peggy, we are even pleased that you enjoy sitting in your garden and enjoy watching the planes fly over Broadbridge Heath and Billingshurst at 6,000 feet and 10,000 feet respectively, we are pleased for you both that you live far enough away from the new flight paths that the planes don’t affect you!

Whereas we live on the outskirts of Warnham and the planes are NOW flying over us at 3,000 feet and directly above our house, we don’t have double glazing and the new flight paths make our non double glazed windows rattle at times, we cannot sit comfortably in our garden and hold a conversation without raising our voices to the point of shouting to person next to us every time a plane flies over, this is also frequently before the last one has gone out of earshot!

We also don’t care for the fact we can’t sleep with our windows open in the summer because the noise wakes us all up at 5.50 every morning, and no, we don’t have air conditioning either!

What we do have is a daughter who has autism and sensory processing disorder which means we don’t get a break from the constant noise as she is unable to leave her home environment as, in particular, loud noises petrify her.

We have been living here for over 18 years in relative peace so we don’t see why moving or just excepting the infringement of the new flight paths is an option just so Gatwick can make more money whilst the price of our house has dropped to the point we couldn’t move if we wanted too, and why should we Ken?

We were here long before the new flight paths that we are complaining about.

We would love Peggy and Ken to come and visit us in our garden to see how we have to cope with the noise and the anguish of our daughter and then tell our child to ‘get a life’ because believe us, she would love to have her old life before the new flight paths, let alone a life where she could live the life of a normal child.

We have enough in our lives to contend with without having to do battle with Gatwick and reply to letters in a newspaper.

Until you understand what others are having to deal with, you have little right to tell people to get a life or move home! Whilst you’re sitting and enjoying your garden and writing condescending letters about subjects you obviously have little understanding of, all we are trying to do is get our lives back back!

LAURA STANDING

Mayes Lane, Warnham