‘The case of Bristol Airport exposes the gaping flaw in national planning guidance’

The government’s planning inspectors decided to overrule local decision-making and the wishes of local people to support Bristol Airport’s expansion plans – a backwards step that will increase noise, pollution and other impacts for communities living nearby, as well as increasing the airport’s contribution to the climate crisis.

Local councils, residents, scientists, teachers, MPs, local campaign groups, conservationists and health professionals have united in opposition to the expansion plans, in recognition of the local – and global – harms caused by the aviation industry and the understanding that any economic gains from the expansion would be more than cancelled out by its cost to people and our climate.

The real cost of the proposed expansion to wider society and the taxpayer, once the climate impacts have been taken into account, are an astonishing £494m. If it’s allowed to go ahead, this expansion will line the pockets of airport shareholders at a huge cost to the rest of us.

So why on earth is the government overruling a local decision, made in alignment with the council’s climate commitments and in accordance with the wishes of local people?

Well, when it comes to aviation, our government has its head placed firmly in the sand and its fingers in its ears. It refuses to acknowledge the reality that emissions-free flight is extremely difficult, due to hard physical limits and resource constraints. Instead of acknowledging these difficulties and planning to scale down the number of flights in a way that fairly allocates remaining air miles, they indulge in a fantasy of unlimited growth on a finite planet and within a seriously overloaded ecosystem.

Bristol Airport wants to increase its annual passengers from 10m to 12m – photo: Martin Booth

The government is relying upon the aviation industry to cut its emissions and reduce the damage it causes to the climate. And the industry is using the prospect of the emergence of controversial and embryonic technologies such as carbon removals and alternative fuels to justify expansion now, decades at best before ways to fly without harming the climate are available.

There is one easy-to-implement solution to aviation emissions – reducing demand for flights. The councils which refused to support Bristol Airport’s expansion have shown that they understand this. A ban on airport expansions is a vital part of the solution to reducing emissions from flying, while ensuring that the views of local people who oppose polluting high carbon infrastructure are heard.

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Read more: ‘Outrageous’, ‘disastrous’, ‘shameful’

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The case of Bristol Airport further exposes the gaping flaw in national planning guidance, which refuses to acknowledge that the total of proposed airport expansions would push the UK’s aviation emissions way over any limit that’s compatible with our climate commitments. It is astonishing that, in overruling the decision made by local government not to permit the airport expansion, the Planning Inspectorate set out that the proposed expansion’s contribution to climate change, the key crisis of our times, “must be regarded as neutral in the planning balance”.

Clearly, it’s ridiculous to suggest that any increase in harm to the climate should be regarded neutrally. Yet the Planning Inspectorate’s decision is baked into the government’s approach to aviation, in which it tries to have its climate cake while continuing to overeat on flight expansion.

National policies set by the government make it very difficult for local decision-makers to stand up against high-carbon projects that local people have rejected; particularly, the government’s refusal to include capacity limits at airports as a sensible measure to manage emissions from a highly polluting sector.

Also unhelpful is the get-out-of-jail-free clause for individual polluting projects, with the claim that each one alone won’t burst the UK’s carbon budgets and are therefore fine to go ahead from a climate perspective. This short-sighted view disregards the obvious fact that the combination of all these road-building projects, airport expansions and new oil drilling cannot possibly be compatible with our climate commitments.

Campaigners and local politicians have spoken out against the airport expansion plans – photo: Bristol Airport Action Network

The government’s lack of a coherent climate strategy or a viable pathway for reducing aviation emissions is failing communities and our climate. It’s clear that we need urgent changes to empower and support communities that reject climate-trashing projects such as the Bristol Airport expansion, rather than override them.

What’s needed is a fair approach to reducing demand for flights, starting by putting higher taxes on the 70 per cent of flights which are taken by just 15 per cent of people in the UK, via a frequent flyer levy. Taxing people more as they fly more often would reduce emissions from flying while also raising funds to decarbonise our transport system through investing in climate-friendly transport such as rail – one form of transport we actually need to expand.

That’s how we can meet our climate commitments, fairly share out the flights we can take within our carbon budget, and improve the transport links that the majority of people rely on every day. Local people can see this solution clearly. Why can’t the Government?

Alethea Warrington is a campaigner for climate charity Possible

Main photo: Stephen Sumner

Read more: Decision to block Bristol Airport expansion overturned on appeal 

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