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December 2005 Airport Expansion

why it's not what they pretend it is

This response has been submitted as part of the consultation stage of the plans published by airport owners Tidefast Ltd, to expand the airport at Lulsgate . Links to the relevant papers follow.

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Bristol Green Parties,
C/o Circle Books,
65 North Street,
Bedminster,
Bristol BS3 1ES

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Response to the consultation on proposals for expanding Bristol International Airport

The Masterplan has put an unconvincing case for expanding the airport, and our criticism of this is based on:

1. Its flawed economic analysis of the potential benefits and costs of this expansion to the local economy.
2. Its naïve belief in the ability of one very heavily subsidised sector of the economy to deliver economic benefit.
3. The total and wilful lack of recognition of the enormous environmental impacts expansion will have on climate change and human health.
4. The downplaying of the role expansion will have on degrading the local environment, in terms of noise, visual amenity and traffic congestion.
5. The lack of any objective analysis of how expansion compares with more sustainable ways of improving the local economy and environment, and with alternative means of transport provision.

1. Economic considerations

We dispute the assertion within the Masterplan that expansion of the airport will necessarily be a benefit to the local economy. The effect of expanding airports has been researched thoroughly, and has shown that expanding aviation can be a net drain on the country's economy, with a much higher outflow of money from the UK and the local region than inflow. This can especially be seen in the tourist sector of the economy. The Masterplan acknowledges that tourism will make up 80% of passenger numbers, and that those leaving the UK will outnumber those arriving here by many times.

Aviation is a comparatively small part of the economy, and in terms of job creation is poor value for money spent. If job creation is one of the plan's objectives, we would argue that more sustainable sectors of the economy could provide far greater numbers of jobs that would be more secure than could be envisaged by expanding the airport. There is no public policy justification for prioritising airport expansion over more environmentally sustainable job creation.

The expansion of the airport will be heavily dependent on public subsidy, through the provision of infrastructure, such as roads, to serve the airport, and through many tax incentives that give unfair advantage to aviation over other more sustainable transport providers or job creators. It would be foolish to base plans on expansion on the unsustainable use of these incentives, which will certainly be removed within the lifetime of these proposals.

In addition, caps on emissions that may well be brought in before expansion has even taken place will place extra costs onto BIA, which will dampen demand for air journeys.

The Masterplan acknowledges that the airport will become more dependent on low cost airlines and tourism. It is foolish in the extreme to rely on a sector which relies on its ability to cut costs, including relocating to areas of lower cost. Many examples of this have already happened at other regional airports in the UK. A more secure and sustainable plan would be for the airport to become more reliant on transport providers who are based within the local economy.

2. The global environment

The Masterplan ignores the effect its proposals will have on the global environment. It glibly says that the effects on climate change from aviation are small and cannot be easily put against individual companies. However, aviation is responsible for the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases, and this is particularly severe due to the special nature of the atmosphere in which many aircraft fly.

Any proposal for expansion must take responsibility for its contribution to the rapidly increasing problem of global warming, and offer mitigation factors that are real and effective. This plan makes no attempt to do this, instead relying on BIA signing up to the sustainable aviation strategy. There is no suggestion of any measures being put in place, such as increased landing charges, to start to pay for any of the massive environmental costs that air journeys already create and which will be exacerbated by the proposed expansion.

The actual physical expansion will also alter the climate locally. The effect of concreting over a large section of the hillside for car parking and parking space for aircraft, as well as additional runway space, will lead to greater run off from heavy rainfall and other effects. This will exacerbate the likely consequences of more severe weather caused by climate change.

3. Local environmental factors

Expansion will rely on much better local access to the airport than the currently congested road network provides. Lulsgate is, in fact, in about as poor a location as one could find for a major transport interchange, distant from any major public transport provision. The Masterplan sets itself a target of increasing usage of the Bristol Flyer bus service, which it describes as being 'challenging'. However, there is no evidence given as to how the target will be realistically achieved, and given the airport's reliance on income from its car parking provision, it seems unlikely that it will have the willingness to support the necessary measures for this.

Even if the target were to be achieved, the number of car journeys to the airport would still be far higher than at present. The Masterplan acknowledges this with its proposals for the 6,000 additional car parking spaces. Implicitly, the Masterplan depends on road improvements outside of its control to provide for these journeys. Whilst these are the subject of consultation elsewhere, the impact of road proposals, such as the South Bristol Ring Road, will be devastating to the local environment of the areas they go through. These include both heavily built up and poor neighbourhoods in south Bristol and areas of particular natural beauty on the hills around the airport and between it and Bristol. To put it bluntly, the expansion proposals rely on measures elsewhere 'doing their dirty work', ruining the local environment for many people who will gain no benefit from the expansion of the airport.

Whatever measures are eventually put in place to improve transport links to the airport, the existing congestion on much of the local road network will undoubtedly get worse, as any road 'improvements' will be filled with extra traffic arriving at both the airport and at workplaces and other facilities which locate in areas close to the airport. Air and noise pollution from traffic in much of Bristol, including roads that are used to convey traffic to the airport, are already very poor, ruining the quality of life for many people.

The direct expansion of land to be used by the airport will have a detrimental effect on the environment around the airport, however much BIA says it will mitigate this. This will affect the visual amenity of the area for some distance around. Past expansion has already affected the road layout on both sides of the airport, adversely effecting local journeys in these areas.

The Masterplan tries to show that expansion of services will not affect any more people than are currently affected by aircraft noise. It does this by relying on decibel levels (57dcb) which do not include many who will be severely affected. Both the World Health Organisation and the European Union recommend a maximum level of 50dcb before noise becomes a severe nuisance, a much lower level than that used in the Masterplan, and one which we suspect would include a far larger number of the local population.

In addition, the increased number of flights will mean that it will be necessary to have many more flights passing over more built up areas in the locality, especially in Bristol. This will lead not just to more nuisance from increased noise to a large number of people, but also to other pollution from emissions and waste removal from aircraft here. It will also lead to a heightened risk of aircraft accident over an urban area.

Local air pollution is already a major problem in many parts of the locality, again especially within Bristol, with Government indices being breached in some areas quite regularly. Greater numbers of aircraft flying over the city can only exacerbate this.

Lulsgate's situation is also particularly susceptible to problems caused by the local weather. This is particularly due to the frequent amount of low cloud on the hills reducing visibility here, and has recently led to flights having to be diverted or cancelled. No recognition of this issue seems to have been made in the Masterplan.

Summary

The Masterplan has no economic justification, and is likely to lead to a net disbenefit for the local economy. It will be hugely damaging to the environment and local communities, causing increased problems to human health and to the effects of climate change both locally and globally. It will have a severe impact on local transport problems, with congestion and safety on local roads, including within Bristol, badly affected.

USEFUL LINKS:

BIA Masterplan - the detail:
http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/about_us/master_plan_consultation.aspx

NO Bristol Airport Expansion! at
www.nobristolairportexpansion.co.uk

Airportwatch:
http://www.airportwatch.org.uk/

Contact: Jon Lucas, email east (at) bristolgreenparty.org.uk