Government decision on airport capacity to 2030 imminent

1. The Government's long-awaited Air Transport White Paper, setting out air transport policy to 2030, is expected to be published on Wednesday 17 December.  The White Paper is the culmination of a national consultation process, which started in July 2002, and to which the Department for Transport has received over 400,000 responses.

2. While environmental groups, MPs and local communities are calling on the Government to introduce a policy that is environmentally sustainable, many fear that the White Paper will instead propose damaging new runways.  Stansted, Heathrow, Gatwick and Birmingham seem to be prime contenders for expansion.

Background

3. The original consultation papers were published as seven Regional Air Studies that covered the whole of the United Kingdom.  They claimed considerable economic benefits from air transport and projected that demand would rise from 180 million passenger movements a year in 2000 to over 500 million by 2030. 

4. Expansion options to meet this projected demand included 17 possible new runways across England.  The options included two entirely new airports, one between Coventry and Rugby, and one on the Cliffe marshes in North Kent.  Huge losses to the economy in terms of jobs, tourism revenue and foreign investment were forecast if demand was not met.

Environmental damage undervalued

5. The original consultation papers significantly downplayed the damaging environmental impacts of air transport on communities and the countryside.  These impacts include climate change, noise and air pollution, and the loss of landscape, heritage and wildlife to new airports, runways and associated development.  Climate change is perhaps the most significant, long-term threat.  The growth in air transport threatens Government commitments in the Energy White Paper to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (the principle greenhouse gas) to 60% of 1990 levels by 2050.  The Institute of Public Policy Research has calculated that if the aviation industry is allowed to continue to grow without constraint, emissions from air transport will exceed the UK's entire allowable quota of sustainable carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

Greening the White Paper

6. CPRE, alongside Airport Watch partners, has been campaigning hard for an environmentally sustainable air transport policy.  For example, in March 2003 we released an analysis of the cumulative environmental impacts of airport expansion options.   In April, we published a report by Professor John Whitelegg The Economics of Aviation: A North West England Perspective.  This showed that air transport is actually draining investment from the country and costing jobs.  For the North West alone it was calculated that 165,000 jobs a year are lost to outward investment facilitated by air transport.

Flying to distraction

7. June saw the release of research on aircraft noise and the countryside carried out for CPRE.  In Flying to distraction, graphics of England highlighted in stark terms the effect of unconstrained growth in air transport on communities and the countryside, now and in 2030.  Key findings in the report included a projected rise in the numbers of people seriously bothered by aircraft noise from 277,500 now to over 600,000 in 2030.  Alongside this, the land area exposed to unacceptable noise was projected to rise from 605km2 now to 2,090km2 in 2030, an area the size of Cheshire.  Most of this land is currently tranquil countryside.

8. A number of recommendations flowed from the report.  These included the provision of 50dB(A) noise contours for all airports.  The Department for Transport uses a guide of 57dB(A) for the onset of significant community annoyance.  However, World Health Organisation guidelines state that 50-55dB(A) should be recognised as the onset of significant annoyance.  Our own research found that 50dB(A) is vital for measuring the effect on rural areas and on vulnerable groups like schoolchildren and the elderly.  Finally, 40dB(A) was recommended as appropriate for measuring the impact on tranquil areas.  In contrast, a Boeing 747-400 at 7,000 feet (the lowest altitude an aircraft flies in a stack waiting to land) emits 63dB(A).  The report concluded that aircraft noise is not an issue for just a few residents around Heathrow.  It is a major and growing issue affecting thousands of households.

An environmentally sustainable air transport White Paper

9. Rather than sanction new runways based on questionable economic assumptions, the Government should adopt a precautionary approach to air transport policy and ensure that a responsible attitude is taken to future airport growth.  Measures that CPRE would like to see in the White Paper include:

* raising Air Passenger Duty (APD).  The Government is committed to ensuring that air transport pays for the environmental damage that it imposes.  Raising APD would be an important step in the right direction prior to the introduction of more targeted measures.  These should include the development of a European-level emissions charge, and eventual emissions trading scheme, to combat climate change;

• strong moves towards ending the industry's major tax concessions.  That there is no tax on aviation fuel, and no VAT on fuel, tickets and new aircraft, is worth an estimated £9.2 billion a year to the aviation industry;
• the introduction of slot-auctioning to ensure the most efficient use of existing infrastructure;
• the promotion of an integrated transport system that provides less damaging alternatives to short haul and European flights through high-speed electric rail;
• the further raising of landing fees and an end to the 'single till' system to ensure that landing fees reflect the true costs of using the airport infrastructure;
• legally binding independently assessed caps on air and noise pollution at airports consistent with World Health Organisation guidelines, enforceable through fines which provide a real incentive to cut pollution.  This is vital as it is widely recognised that minor incremental reductions in emissions through improved technology will be swamped by the continuing growth of the industry; and
• the pursuit of a plan-led system for airport related development, making the best use of existing infrastructure and taking full account of environmental capacity constraints before final decisions are made on the location of any new infrastructure.