Luton expansion opposed by Hertfordshire County Council – NO conditions could make it acceptable
Hertfordshire County councillors say they are “vehemently opposed” to plans to increase passenger numbers at Luton Airport – and that NO conditions could make it acceptable. Luton Rising – the owners of the airport – have applied to increase the annual number of air passengers from 19m to 32m a year. The application is currently being examined by the Planning Inspectorate, PINS, as a ‘National Significant Infrastructure Project’. At a council meeting on 12th December, a motion backed by all political parties, pointed to the impact the expansion would have on traffic, on the environment and on noise. It called on PINS to recommend that the application is refused. Due to negative transport, environment and noise impacts, the expansion should be opposed, and was “difficult, if not impossible” to see any planning conditions that would make it ‘acceptable’. One councillor said: “We are in the middle of a climate emergency … we have got to invest in transport that does not destroy the planet. Aircraft are one of the worst polluting forms of transport there are and we must seek to reduce it and not increase it.”
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Luton Airport expansion plan opposed in Hertfordshire
15th December 2023
By Deborah Price, Local Democracy Reporter (Watford Observer)
COUNTY councillors say they are “vehemently opposed” to plans to increase passenger numbers at Luton Airport – and that NO conditions could make it acceptable.
Luton Rising – the owners of London Luton Airport – have applied to increase the annual number of passengers using the airport from 19m to 32m a year.
And that application is currently being examined by the Planning Inspectorate, as a ‘National Significant Infrastructure Project’.
On Tuesday (December 12) at a meeting of the Hertfordshire County Council, councillors made their opposition to the plan clear.
A motion backed by all political parties, pointed to the impact the expansion would have on traffic, on the environment and on noise. It called on the Planning Inspectorate to recommend that the application is refused. And, while it accepted the need for the council to engage with the applicant, it said the council “remains of the opinion that there are no conditions that can be applied to the application to make it acceptable”.
Pointing to transport, environment and noise issues, executive member for sustainable economic growth Cllr Stephen Boulton said that increasing passenger numbers was “against the best interest” of Hertfordshire residents.
And he said he did not want there to be any doubt that the council ‘remain opposed to this proposal’.
He stressed there was a need for the council to continue to engage with the applicant “on this wholly unacceptable application”. But he said it was “difficult, if not impossible” to see any planning conditions that would make it ‘acceptable’.
At the meeting it had been suggested council discussions around mitigation with the applicant could have been taken to mean that the council was prepared to accept the expansion and was ‘not really against it’.
Liberal Democrat Cllr John Hale – who proposed the initial motion, which was amended by the Conservatives – said he had been assured that this was not the case.
And he said the motion was a chance to say, as a council, “we are vehemently opposed”.
Seconding the motion, fellow Lib Dem Cllr Nigel Taylor highlighted the impact on the environment.
“We are in the middle of a climate emergency,” he said. “It is not something that is going to go away of its own accord. It is something real and present in the current day.
“We do need transport, but we have got to invest in transport that does not destroy the planet.
“Aircraft are one of the worst polluting forms of transport there are and we must seek to reduce it and not increase it.”
And pointing to the impact the expansion would have on roads, he said: “Our transport system is not coping at the moment.
“East-west travel is a mess. And should we have more north-south traffic on the M1, it will cause more congestion across the whole county – especially in the western side that I represent.”
The motion – initially proposed by the Lib Dems and amended by the Conservatives was unanimously backed by all voting members of the council.
Following the meeting, a statement issued on behalf of Luton Rising pointed to the ‘significant’ benefits of the expansion plan to Hertfordshire residents – predicting 1,400 new jobs supported by the airport and a 75 per cent growth in GDP, from £96m to £168m in 2043.
It pointed to “relatively high concentration of people working in businesses at London Luton Airport living in the Hertfordshire districts south of Luton – as well as residents who use the airport.”
And it suggested the commitments managing environmental impacts are “the most far-reaching yet put forward by any UK airport”.
“The benefits to Hertfordshire and the region from the proposed sustainable growth of our airport are significant, and we believe far outweigh negative impacts,” says the statement from Luton Rising.
“Across the three counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, London Luton Airport supported a £1.1 billion contribution to GDP and sustained 16,500 jobs in 2019. By 2043, our application forecasts an 81 per cent increase in annual GDP, reaching £2.0bn, plus 6,100 new jobs.
“In Hertfordshire alone there will be a predicted 1,400 new jobs supported by the airport, and a 75 per cent growth in GDP from £96m to £168m in 2043.
“Hertfordshire districts just to the south of Luton are home to a relatively high concentration of people working in businesses at London Luton Airport: 1,200 direct employees live in Dacorum,
St Albans or North Hertfordshire, with total employment supported by the airport in those districts contributing combined wages of more than £69m in 2019.
“Use of our airport by Hertfordshire residents is also strong. Each resident of St Albans took an average of 1.9 return flights from our airport in 2019, with residents of Dacorum and North
Hertfordshire also averaging more than one return flight each.
“We believe the commitments we are making to managing environmental impacts through our unique Green Controlled Growth framework are the most far-reaching yet put forward by any UK airport, and for the first time offer real surety to residents about the effects of expansion.
“We welcome the challenges that have been raised during the ongoing examination and are confident that our proposals can be consented in due course.”
Leader of the county council Cllr Richard Roberts was not permitted to vote or take part in the airport debate – after declaring that his wife was a non executive director of EasyJet, which has its headquarters at Luton.
Cllr Roberts has, however, publicly opposed the plans before – pointing to issues such as noise, pressures upon infrastructure and on landscapes.
And he has told the LDRS that he is particularly worried about the impact night flights could have on residents’ sleep.
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See earlier:
St Albans MP: Luton Airport expansion inquiry should be paused
8th December 2023 (The Herts Advertiser)
By Daisy Cooper MP
As temperatures dropped, a chilly week started with a frosty inquiry hearing into the expansion of Luton Airport.
Groups across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire prepared to state their case. But just as the public hearings got underway, I called for the inquiry itself to be put on ice.
The airport has applied to increase its capacity from 18 million to a whopping 32 million passengers per year.
Expansion will bring both a big increase in flights and road traffic congestion, and it’s why I’ve been fighting it since before I was elected, and even raising it in my Maiden Speech in 2020.
People living underneath the flight paths in St Albans and neighbouring areas already experience a negative impact on their health and wellbeing which would only get worse.
The airport has repeatedly breached their legal noise and passenger limits since 2019 with impunity and the promised introduction of newer, quieter aircraft has been broken with no discernible improvements.
Claims about economic impact and job creation are also pretty spurious. Luton airport has not delivered the jobs it promised years ago, and the sector has had one of the largest falls in wages in the country.
Savings are going into the pockets of shareholders, not into the pay packets of employees. We want new well-paid jobs from green technologies and they’re not to be found at the airport.
But fundamentally, Luton’s expansion would make it much harder to fight the climate crisis.
The 2019 Advice from the government’s own Climate Change Committee is crystal clear: to meet the legally binding 2050 “net zero target” there should be no net expansion of capacity.
Aviation is likely to be the single largest producer of carbon emissions by 2050 and fuel efficiency measures are estimated to allow only a 20 per cent reduction in emissions at best.
As a result, climate experts have told the government that no airport expansions should go ahead until a framework is in place to reduce emissions overall.
The same experts have said that a framework should be put in place by the end of 2024. I agree and have formally requested that the inspectors pause their inquiry until then.
It’s cold this week but 2023 is on track to be the hottest year on record. What happens next remains to be seen.
https://www.hertsad.co.uk/news/23969302.st-albans-mp-luton-airport-expansion-inquiry-pause/
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