Bristol Airport clashes with anti-expansion campaigners in court

Bristol Airport clashed with anti-airport expansion campaigners in a High Court hearing over the airport’s expansion plans.

Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN) were appealing the decision of the Planning Inspectorate to allow the airport to expand, overturning North Somerset Council’s refusal of permission. The airport wants to increase its annual capacity from 10 million to 12 million passengers by extending its terminal and building additional parking.

A major point of contention in the case is whether emissions from planes should be considered as an environmental impact of the airport. Bristol Airport had argued in the planning inquiry North Somerset Council’s sustainable development policies only applied to ground emissions and not those from aviation.

On Tuesday, Estelle Dehon , representing BAAN, argued emissions from the planes should be considered. She said: “Neither of these policies say in their wording that they relate to local impacts to the exclusion of other impacts.”

Mark Westmoreland Smith, defending the decision, said the planning inspectorate had stated they had considered aviation emissions and that the rise would not be significant.

He also said the council’s policies did not mean the airport could not expand, adding they “start with the assumption of development and then what do you do to ensure that it mitigates its climate impact.”

Dehon also set out her case on five other grounds, including the impact of non-CO2 emissions, whether the airport was correctly addressing the impact on bats, and whether there was a legal error by the planning inspectorate over mistaking a “presumption” for an “assumption,” a legally distinct concept.

The, at times, dry legal proceedings were in contrast to the protest outside the court, where activists gathered throughout the rainy morning to voice their opposition to airport expansion.

The protest went on throughout the day and featured visits from the red-clad figures of the Rebel Red Brigade and from a group of XR activists dressed as airport marshalls.

Protestor Clive Weston had been outside the court since 7.30am. He said would rather be spending his retirement at home with his feet up but said he felt he had to do something and was hopeful about the legal challenge.

He said: “Obviously we’ve got a strong moral case but we feel we have got a strong legal case too.”

The airport wants to increase its annual capacity from 10 million to 12 million passengers – photo: Betty Woolerton

On the second day of the hearing, Dehon argued there had been errors of law in the Planning Inspectorate’s decision to allow the expansion to go ahead.

But Humpries, representing the airport as an interested party, said that this was an “overly legalistic criticism” of the planning inspectors’ report. He added: “Fairly read, this is an exemplary inspectors report.”

Humphries, however, said the Planning Inspectorate had been “perfectly correct” that planning policies did not apply directly to aviation emissions and that they only applied to the environmental impact of the airport buildings and ground vehicles.

He claimed that the impact of aviation emissions had still been taken into account but that reducing them had been judged to be a matter of national, rather than local, policy.

He added: “The key point of difference between parties is how this is to be achieved. Other parties are saying this should be addressed through restrictions on capacity [of the airport]. The airport is saying this should be controlled at a national level.”

Humpries drew a comparison between the case of the airport and the example of a council considering the impact of a housing development. He said that the environmental impact of the houses would be taken into account, but not the emissions from each car driven onto the estate.

In contrast, Dehon said that considering the sustainability of the airport buildings but not the planes was like considering an application for a chicken farm by looking only at the sustainability of the barn building and ignoring the impact of the birds or their excrement.

Dehon rejected the idea that the Planning Inspectorate had taken aviation emissions into account. She said: “Inspectors found a way of taking aviation emissions into account by leaving them to someone else.”

Other issues raised by BAAN, including the validity of local carbon budgets and the impact of non-CO2 emissions, were also contested by both Bristol Airport and the Planning Inspectorate.

No immediate judgement was made at the end of the hearing. Justice Lane said: “I will reserve my judgement, as it befits something of this nature, and hand it down in due course.”

Main photo: Jon Wimperis

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