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 Response to BIA Master Plan to download here or see below:
bia_submission
See news release here. See earlier response to BIA Master Plan December 2005 here.
There is also enclosed at the bottom of this page a response to BIA
from the Stroud-based Green party's Economics spokesperson.
BIA Master Plan Consultation
Kate Durston
Development Control
North Somerset Council
Somerset House
Oxford Street
Weston-super-Mare
BS23 1TG
dccomments@n-somerset.gov.uk
7th December 2006
Dear Sir/Madam,
Re: Response to BIA Master Plan, Ref: 06/P2701/MP
I enclose Stroud District Green party's comments on the final Master
Plan. Our conclusion is that the Master Plan cannot be supported.
Yours faithfully,
Cllr. Philip Booth, Press Officer,
On behalf of the Stroud District Green Party.
Stroud District Green party response to BIA Master Plan
Ref: 06/P2701/MP
Our "Response to Bristol International Airport Master Plan 2005 to
2030" dated 12th December 2005 raised many key issues. Many of those
have not been answered satisfactorily. We write now in response to the
most important issues raised in the final Master Plan.
Contents:
1. Forecasts
2. Tourism
3. Economic arguments
4. Business travelers
5. Transport
6. Climate change
7. Conclusion
1. Forecasts: section 5
The forecasts in the Master Plan fail to take account of:
- expected large price rises in fuel resulting from 'Peak Oil'
- likely cuts to current tax subsidies to aviation and the introduction
of international legislation and taxes to curb aviation in the light of
climate change
- the impact of growing public concern about aviation and any increase in people seeking alternatives to aviation
Incredibly the current forecasts by the the government are based this
paper on assumptions that the price of flying would continue to fall by
1% or more per year until 2030. Yet oil prices have already more than
doubled per barrel since that forecast was made.
While oil prices may stabilise the reality is that we are or will be
facing 'Peak Oil': the moment in history when our global oil supply can
no longer keep pace with demand. In other words all the easy-to-get at
oil is extracted first, then the slightly harder-to-get-at oil, then a
variety of methods are used to get the harder-still-to-get-at-oil and
then, finally, when you are spending as much energy getting the
remaining oil out as the energy embedded in that oil itself, you just
give up and leave it there. There is simply no point in trying to
remove the remainder. The best estimates of this point by oil companies
and scientists are sometime between 2002 and 2012.
We quote again James May, CEO of the Air Transport Association writing
in the New York Times, who said: "No business model of any airline can
survive with sustained jet-fuel prices of $90 to $100 a barrel." Yet
those are exactly the prices predicted by many experts in the
relatively near future; a major natural or manmade disruption could
bring them about in a day. There is no relief in sight. This situation
cannot be sustained. Within some years or less affordable passenger
flight will be history. It is quite extraordinary that the Master Plan
has not addressed this issue.
2. Tourism: section 6.21 to 6.29
The Master Plan does not argue the case to our satisfaction that
tourism is beneficial for the region: nor does it consider the
implications of a changing climate for the region.
It is argued that we can only speculate on how people might spend
holidays if growth in BIA didn't go ahead. Yet we know that increasing
availability of flights will lead to an increase in those flying: more
particularly those flying several times a year. It is also largely the
well-off that are flying more: the lowest paid groups in this country
are flying less than in 2000 (Cairns report).
It is also claimed that constraining growth on BIA will not act as a
control on outbound international tourism. We disagree with this
analysis. We also see the claim that the notion of constraining growth
of air travel would serve to reduce the UK tourism deficit is
fundamentally flawed
In 2004, British tourists spent around £30bn abroad, and overseas
visitors spent around £13bn here: a deficit of £17bn per year. Visitors
in both cases spend about the same amount per visit, the deficit is
caused by there being far more outbound tourists than inbound ones. Low
cost aviation has driven the rise yet tourists using ferries and the
channel tunnel has not changed very much in that time. The London
airports contribute less to this deficit due to most inbound tourists
visiting London. The deficit is largely caused by regional airports.
BIA causes around £500m per year of the UK tourism deficit, and around
£60m-£80m of this is lost from the South West region – costing jobs in
this tourist region.
Developing domestic tourism that is not reliant on the car is not
considered by the Plan, nor is the fact that in some areas tourism can
have a significantly detrimental effect on many other aspects of the
local communities like affordable housing.
3. Economic arguments: section 6
There appears to have been no in depth independent analysis of the
economic benefits to the region of expanding the airport. Many of the
'benefits' outlined in the draft Master Plan are very questionable and
final Master Plan has done little to provide better analysis.
Friends of the Earth analysis performed by Ecologica shows many ways in
which the expansion will harm the economy. They note that the "The
Government admitted no analysis had been done, and had only been
extrapolated from work done for the South East – and even there most of
the 'benefits' were actually time savings 30 years in the future for
passengers who don't currently use those airports. This is not an
economic benefit that increases the wealth of the country, increases
tax revenue that can be spent on health, public transport etc, and if
it just means more money can be spent abroad by British tourists then
it is to the positive detriment to the economy."
The Master Plan mentions the largest tax levied on aviation is Air
Passenger Duty. This raises less than £1bn per year, and falling,
despite ever increasing passengers. The airlines operating from BIA
receive a tax break on the fuel they use of around £73m each year,
relative to the cost of the same volume of petrol used by private
motorists. It is not fair or reasonable to compare aviation to other
forms of public transport which on the whole are also considerably less
polluting: flying for example is 7 to 10 times worse for the
environment than using a train.
The Master Plan does not properly consider all the costs aviation has
on communities like noise, subsidies etc. Several reports argue
aviation receives a £9bn tax subsidy. This is the main reason airfares
are unfairly low and why many people choose to fly abroad rather than
drive to holidays in the UK, even for short breaks.
No analysis has been done to look at alternatives to airport expansion.
4. Business travelers: section 6
Improvements to business travel to do seem to have been fully analysed and alternatives have not been considered.
The final Master Plan estimates that business travel cost and time
savings will reach £120 million a year by 2030 (Section 6.38). This
figure is deeply suspect in view of the points made in section 1 above.
Have issues like rising fuel prices been considered? What are these
figures based on?
Many high-tech businesses in the South West are not serviced by the
airport because their customers are in the Far East and the West coast
of America. It makes much more sense for these travellers to use
Heathrow to reach those locations directly rather than flying from BIA
to another hub airport and changing planes. Using Heathrow they have a
choice of reliable flights to those destinations.
Business use could significantly increase if needed without any
increase in flights by changing the flight schedule to give more
reliable services to business destinations and less frequent flights to
leisure ones. Business travellers are not attracted by low price
flights but by reliable services to business destinations where they
can avoid unnecessary overnight stays.
Another aspect not covered is that in view of climate change and rising
fuel prices many companies will be looking to avoid business travel by
improving use of phone and video conferencing and the internet.
5. Transport: section 9
The claim that new roads and mitigation measures on key roads like the
A38 and B3130 will be needed, whether the Airport is developed or not,
is highly questionable.
Improvements to public transport are clearly welcomed but we disagree
in the strongest terms with the final Master Plans' suggestion that
road improvements will ease congestion. There has been a vast amount of
research showing that new roads and road improvements just lead to more
traffic. The way to reduce congestion lies in other measures like
London's congestion charge and radical improvements to public transport.
The draft Regional Spatial Strategy for the South West also makes the
point that any improvement to strategic road routes will increase the
volume of traffic flow.
6. Climate change: section 10
The justification that BIA's emissions rises will be negligible is
completely bogus. Furthermore the region is already expected to make
cuts of 60% by 2050 and latest research suggests cuts need to be much
more than this: there is no justification for aviation being excluded
from cuts.
The Master Plan claims emissions amount to 0.4% of the regions
emissions and will rise to 0.7% at 9 million passengers per annum. It
also notes elsewhere that the Government estimate by 2030 aviation
could account for 25% of emissions.
We know that the effect of burning fuel in the air is considerably
higher than burning the fuel at ground level and more than the carbon
dioxide alone would imply – at least 90% more. The Cairns report
suggests that over a 20 year period the enhanced effect is roughly 3.7
times that of the CO2 alone, falling to 1.7 times over 100 years. The
current multiplier being recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change is 1.9 times, but this excludes cirrus clouds not
because they have no effect but because no one is certain how big that
effect is. Some studies suggest that these clouds may more than double
the effect.
Friends of the Earth have noted: "From BIA's own calculations, the
flights in 2005 produced 430000 tonnes of CO2, and this will grow to
730000 tonnes by 2019. According to DEFRA, the traffic emissions for
the whole of the City of Bristol are 390000 tonnes per year – so BIA
already does more damage to the climate than the whole of Bristol's
traffic. When you take into account the high altitude effects, it
already produces more than twice the effect of all of Bristol's
traffic. By 2019, if a high altitude multiplier of 1.9 is applied,
BIA's emissions will be equivalent to 1.387 million tonnes of CO2, more
than the current emissions of the whole of B&NES (1.1 million
tonnes), and almost the same as the current emissions of North Somerset
(1.5 million tonnes). Bristol, B&NES and North Somerset councils
are all committed to cutting their own emissions and those in their
areas by 60% by 2050, and much of these cuts will be cancelled out by
the growth in emissions by BIA."
BIA's comparison of emissions with the whole of the South West is not
useful as most of its travelers come from the old Avon area, rather
than the whole region, other airports in the region are also planning
significant expansions, the multiplier due to emissions high in the
atmosphere is ignored, the figures compare local emissions with those
that happen only during take-off and landing (thus ignoring the huge
amount emitted during flight) and they use old and inaccurate figures
which reduce emissions.
Friends of the Earth sate: "BIA, as noted state that their current
emissions are 0.4% of those from the South West, but according to DEFRA
the total for the South West is 40.972m tonnes, so 430k tonnes is
actually 1.04% of that figure. If the high altitude effects are taking
into account this is 2%. BIA state that by 2019 their emissions will
only be 0.7% of the South West, but assuming the South West emissions
do not grow by that time the figure will in fact be 1.78% and taking
into account high altitude effects this is 3.4%. But over this period
all areas are meant to be making cuts in line with the Government
target for 2050, so assuming this means cuts of around 3% per year from
2010 (24% cut by 2019) the emissions of the South West should have
fallen to 31.1m tonnes, hence BIA's raw CO2 will be 2.3% of the total,
and its effect will be 4.5% if the total. If you analyse emissions by
where the passengers live, this gives you the increase in a persons
emissions due to using BIA (rather than not flying). If this is done
for the areas of the South West that deliver 85% of BIA's passengers,
that flying from BIA increases its customers' CO2 emissions by 27%. If
the high altitude effects are included, this becomes a 51% increase it
its customers climate footprint."
It is clear that allowing BIA to expand as planned will significantly
reduce the effectiveness of expensive reductions in emissions being
made in all other sectors of society in the South West. This is a point
made very strongly by the Strategic Sustainability Assessment (SSA)
made for the draft Regional Spatial Strategy earlier this year. It
states: “...policy SD2 recognises the importance of climate change as
the greatest threat facing life in the South West, but evidence
suggests that the region will be unlikely to achieve the targets set in
the policy without in particular a major shift in transport behaviour
and much higher performance in energy efficiency across the domestic,
industrial and commercial sectors.”
The SSA goes onto conclude: "The RSS should explicitly resist
airport expansion, because it would undermine all the efforts within
other sections of the draft RSS to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
Lastly while we applaud the intentions to consider on-site renewables,
the Master Plan is far from specific about what is planned. A clear
stated aim of carbon-neutral buildings would be a considerable
improvement.
7. Conclusion
Our conclusion is that the Master Plan cannot be supported.
The end.
Green party Economic's spokesperson writes to BIA:
I am writing to oppose the expansion of Bristol
airport. I have a PhD in economics and work as a university lecturer in
that field.
The expansion of the airport would be an economic disaster for North
Somerset and the whole of the West Country. It is clear from the Stern
Report that we are moving towards a low-carbon economy. Whatever the
airline corporations do is pointless in the face of this wider reality.
Any suggestion that there is any financial advantage to be gained from
airport expansion is untrue. Bristol Airport is moving rapidly towards
becoming a white elephant. Money would be much better spent developing
local tourism opportunities to support the 8 per cent of people in this
area who rely on this source of employment.
From a wider perspective, it is the duty of local politicians to
encourage a move towards carbon reductions, the opposite of what is
implied by airport expansion. I refer you to the recent report from the
Carbon Trust
(http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/about/presscentre/06_01_31.htm) which
shows that recreation and leisure is already responsible for 17.9% of
our emissions, with aviation contributing another 6.2%. These are major
targets for reductions, not the increases that an expansion of Bristol
airport would bring about.
Molly Scott Cato, Thrupp, Stroud
MtC %
Aviation
11.0 6.2
Recreation and leisure 31.6 17.9
Space
heating
24.0 13.6
Food and
catering
22.4 12.7
Household
22.2 12.6
Health and
hygiene
21.7 12.3
Clothing and
footwear
16.1 9.1
Commuting
13.1 7.4
Education
7.9 4.5
Other
government
4.8 2.7
Communication
1.6 0.9
176.4 99.9
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