‘We will not be giving up our fight against airport expansion’

The Government’s Planning Inspectorate have allowed Bristol Airport’s appeal and therefore – barring any other legal challenges or the intervention of the secretary of state – the airport can now expand and have an extra two million passengers a year.

What are the local implications and how does the written decision of over 100 pages justify the decision?

The on-the-ground implications for people living near the airport are pretty horrendous:

• 10,000 extra car journeys a day in the narrow roads and pretty villages near the airport,
• hundreds of extra night flights in the summer (nearly as many as Heathrow!),
• severe increase in noise causing distress, medical and mental health issues,
• enormous amounts of extra carbon released in the fragile high atmosphere having a direct impact on climate change,
• not to mention the disturbed bats and other habitat, the damage to the Green Belt caused by a multi-storey car park and the increased air pollution putting the area around the airport way above the WHO current maximum guidelines for particulates.

We have been shouting loudly about this for some years (three years for this current planning application but 20 years for some locals) so none of it is news.

Eleven-thousand people wrote comments to the planners (84 per cent against) and every local council has objected.

The local MP is firmly against as are many other civic and political leaders. So how does it appear to have got approval?

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

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The planning inspectorate is independent but of course they are civil servants and they understand which way the political wind is blowing.

The decision feels like it just reflects the will of our business and political leaders. but really, some of the words printed on the pages of the decision itself make my head reel.

Lets start with the Health Impact Assessment: despite the inquiry hearing numerous doctors and other health professionals bring passionate evidence about the terrible mental and physical effects of noise and lack of sleep (plus pollution and other impacts) the inspectors concluded that “there would be an overall beneficial impact on population health” if the expansion went ahead.

That’s right; a “beneficial impact”. No, I’m not making this up: paragraph 493 if you’re interested.

What about the traffic impact? The inspectors concluded 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”.

Really! Tough luck, residents. Nothing to see here.

Bearing in mind that we’re in the middle of a climate and ecological emergency, and our prime minister said before COP26 that we are at ‘one minute to minute’, the conclusion of the inspectors on the climate impacts of the expansion are surprising to say the least.

They concluded that: yes, the “climate change position would be worsened” but the climate change issue “must be regarded as neutral in the planning balance”.

Can they really think that? Have I fallen down a rabbit hole?

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Read more: Sparks fly as Bristol Airport expansion inquiry draws to a close

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Let’s look at noise. Surely the report will be critical about the additional noise that must come with the plans?

The inspectors start off well by admitting the obvious and saying that “airport operations produce noise” but it is all downhill from there I’m afraid.

They somehow manage to reach the conclusion that the extra noise from the thousands of extra planes needed to carry the two million extra passengers from the airport “is negligible” and thus “not significant”.

What about air quality? Despite all parties agreeing that the airport will breach the WHO 2021 air quality guidelines on the amounts of additional damaging particulates, the inspectors cravenly agreed with the airport’s statement that “there would be no unacceptable effects on air quality from the proposed development on health and well being”.

Ah; the Green Belt. Surely the inspectors want to protect it from the multi-storey car park that the airport are planning to build?

Well no actually; the inspectors concluded that “the benefits arising from the proposed development… would clearly outweigh the harm to the Green Belt”.

Campaigners have been fighting airport expansion for many years – photo: Bristol24/7

Socio-economics then perhaps? The inspectors seem to have totally ignored the New Economics Foundation Report that found the the jobs and other benefits claimed by the airport are grossly exaggerated and the fundamental methodology of the airport’s reports are flawed.

Instead, they happily quote all the airport’s own figures for new jobs. In addition, they say that despite the Zoom working revolution, the airport’s estimates of business travel growth (which they unrealistically claim will soon be back to pre-pandemic levels and above) are “fit for purpose”.

What about extra tourists coming to the area?

Well; 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 UK-based tourists who fly to holidays abroad from the airport.

Despite this, for some reason known only to themselves, the inspectors conclude that “the effects of outbound tourism are unlikely to be significant”

Are the planning inspectorate going to shelter the protected bats that are going to be displaced if the expansion goes ahead? It seems not. The inspectors conclude that “there will be no adverse effect” on the bats from this unexpected displacement.

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

So there you have it; as you may have gathered I’m very unhappy about both the process and this decision.

It completely trashes the local democratic decision-making process and it is disastrous for local residents and the climate and ecological emergency.

It is even more embarrassing as we are still chair-country of the COP26 process for the next nine months or so.

New oilfields? Expanding airports? New deep coal mines? Bring them on, say our deeply flawed political leaders. Sue Gray had it right when she said there was a lack of leadership at No. 10.

Bristol Airport Action Network will continue to resist this insane project in any way we can. We are currently investigating further legal challenges to this deeply flawed decision and will not be giving up anytime soon.

Stephen Clarke is a member of Bristol Airport Action Network and a former Green Party councillor for Southville

Main photo: BAAN

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

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