‘Bristol Airport expansion must be stopped’

The biggest climate related decision in this area for a generation will be decided this week. Yes, that’s right; Bristol Airport is back with their mad scheme to expand!

Their plans to expand by two million passengers a year were originally decisively rejected by the local planning committee.

You would think that would be the end of it; especially considering that all of the local councils and MPs submitted objections, 84 per cent of the 11,000 residents who commented are against and we are in the middle of climate breakdown.

But no, Bristol Airport Ltd (or their owners, the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan) appealed the decision to the Planning Inspectorate.

During the subsequent ten-week public inquiry, Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN) fully participated with a legal team and three world-class experts giving evidence.

The inspectors listened politely to the arguments of our team, the legal and expert team of North Somerset Council, other lawyers from the local parishes and many dozens of local people passionate in their objections and then proceeded to totally ignore them in their decision.

The inspectors’ written report really reads like it could have been dictated by Bristol Airport themselves and basically upholds every argument they made.

Bristol Airport’s proposed expansion would increase their capacity from 10m to 12m passengers a year – image: Bristol Airport

A few especially ridiculous conclusions in the inspectors’ report include these:

• Despite the inquiry hearing numerous doctors and other health professionals bring scientific evidence about the mental and physical effects of noise and lack of sleep caused by night flights (plus the additional pollution and other impacts), the inspectors concluded that “there would be a overall beneficial impact on population health’ if the expansion went ahead”.
• On traffic impact, the inspectors said that the extra 10,000 car journeys a day which would flood the narrow roads and villages surrounding the airport “would not give rise to an unacceptable effect on highway safety nor any severe residual cumulative impacts on the road network”.
• On the direct impact of emissions on the climate, the inspectors came to the crazy conclusion that the climate change issue “must be regarded as neutral in the planning balance”. Bristol Airport of course claims it will soon be carbon-neutral anyway; unfortunately that calculation does not include the planes.
• On air quality, the inspectors decided that, while agreeing that the airport will breach the WHO 2021 Air Quality Guidelines on the amounts of additional damaging particulates, they accepted the airport’s statement that “there would be no unacceptable effects on air quality from the proposed development on health and wellbeing”.
• The plans include a multi-storey car park on greenbelt land but the inspectors determined that “the benefits arising from the proposed development… would clearly outweigh the harm to the greenbelt”.
• The inspectors totally ignored a New Economics Foundation report that found that the jobs and other benefits claimed by the airport are grossly exaggerated and the fundamental methodology of the airport’s reports are flawed.
• Despite the fact that we heard expert evidence at the inquiry that the ratio of outgoing to incoming tourists at the airport is 6:1 (in other words, there is only one tourist arriving at Bristol Airport for every six tourists who fly to holidays abroad from the airport), the inspectors concluded that “the effects of outbound tourism are unlikely to be significant”.

Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate protesters on Park Street – photo: Archie Richards

The members of BAAN found it difficult to accept that the inspectors had correctly considered all the evidence so we took further legal advice.

We were advised by our legal team that the decision contained numerous errors in law so we crowdfunded to bring this legal challenge and quickly raised the money needed from hundreds of individuals who were also outraged.

We are confident that the judge at this week’s hearing will agree with our legal advisers and quash the airport’s planning permission.

However, the wider point is that the planning system is not fit-for-purpose when it comes to airport expansion plans. For example, there is a terrible Catch 22 in the system that means that the impact of the carbon emissions from the many thousand of extra planes has not even been taken into account in the decision.

This is because the planning inspectors said that they could not consider them at a local level and the secretary of state has refused to become involved at a national level.

In addition, more than 20 other regional airports have plans to expand which would lead to an extra 80m passengers a year. But no consideration has been given to the combined impact of their additional emissions.

Each one is being treated in isolation thereby making their climate impact appear relatively small when measured against the whole country’s aviation budget.

However, these carbon emissions will make it almost impossible to comply with the UK’s legal obligation to be carbon-neutral by 2050.

Be in no doubt: whatever they say, these expansion plans are all about profit for the airport owners overriding any concerns about the environment or thought for the local residents. It must be stopped!

Stephen Clarke is a member of Bristol Airport Action Network, a coalition of groups and individuals working to oppose Bristol Airport’s expansion plans

Main photo: BAAN

Read next:

• XR Youth protesters target Airport Flyer bus
• Scenes of ‘utter chaos’ at Bristol Airport during half-term getaway
• Decision to block Bristol Airport expansion overturned on appeal

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