Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Eastleigh BC confirms its decision to allow Southampton airport 164 metre runway extension
Eastleigh Borough Council (EBC) has confirmed, on 3rd June, its decision to permit Southampton airport's 164 metre runway extension. The PCU (Planning Casework Unit at the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government) had an informal agreement with Eastleigh to hold off on the decision while the Sec of State, Robert Jenrick, considered the call in request. The PCU said the planning permission would not be issued until the S106 Legal Agreement was completed. On 14 May EBC told the PCU that they had completed the S106 and would grant permission at the end of May unless they heard back to the contrary, from the PCU ... which they didn't. It is now too late for the application to be called in. Extinction Rebellion Southampton said the Secretary of State must be held to account for his failure to act on climate grounds. Work on the runway extension could start later this summer. Campaigners have not confirmed whether they will challenge the final decision.
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Stansted to reclaim costs from Uttlesford council due to winning its expansion planning appeal
Stansted Airport intends to reclaim "hundreds of thousands of pounds" from Uttlesford District Council (UDC), after it won its appeal over expansion plans - against the council's refusal. In January 2020 UDC had rejected proposals to increase Stansted's passenger cap from 35 to 43 million per year. The officers had recommended approval of proposals. An inquiry by the Planning Inspectorate found "overwhelmingly in favour of the grant of planning permission". Uttlesford is a small council, which should not have to bear vast costs, in order to try to prevent harm to its local residents. Stansted already has permission to increase capacity from 28 million to 35 million annual passengers.
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Rising use of private jets (most in UK using Luton and Farnborough) sends CO2 emissions soaring
An analysis by campaign group, Transport & Environment, has found that CO2 from private jets in Europe increased by about a third between 2005 and 2019. Flights that entered or left the UK accounted for nearly a fifth of these emissions, giving the UK the largest share of any European country. Private jet use continued in 2020. By August 2020, when the number of commercial flights was about 60% down in the UK, the level of private jet use was almost as high as in 2019. Of the top ten highest carbon private flight routes that take off or land in Europe (the 27 EU members plus Britain, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland) six involved either Luton or Farnborough airports. The Luton to Teterboro New York route had the highest private jet emissions, with 565 flights a year, despite a commercial alternative routes between Heathrow and John F Kennedy airport. The private jet sector has grown rapidly, and provides convenience for the very rich, and the ability to reduce personal Covid infection risk at airports, and in crowded planes. The CO2 emissions from a private jet, with very few passengers, is hugely more per person (5 to 14 times) than on a commercial flight - even first class. The inequity of private jet use, and the huge climate impact, mean the sector should be under the spotlight, especially for the UK in the year it hosts the COP26 talks, in November in Glasgow.
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Unreasonable behaviour
"Unreasonable behaviour": these were the words used by the Panel of Planning Inspectors to describe the conduct of Uttlesford District Council (UDC) in their formal ruling, dated 26 May, which approved an increase in Stansted Airport's planning cap from 35 million to 43 million passengers per annum ('mppa'). This followed a Public Inquiry which ran from 12 January to 12 March 2021, involving three main parties, namely UDC, Manchester Airports Group (MAG) and Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE). (Note that SSE has since been succeeded by Stansted Airport Watch (SAW). Commenting on the outcome of the Public Inquiry, SAW Chairman Brian Ross, said: “We are, of course, disappointed but we are not at all surprised, bearing in mind that the Council's planning officers made no real attempt to defend the decision of their own Planning Committee. We will carefully review the Panel's ruling and discuss with our legal advisers before deciding whether to seek leave to appeal." The approval comes despite UDC's Planning Committee having last year voted unanimously to refuse MAG's application for further expansion of Stansted.
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Stansted wins appeal, against refusal by Uttlesford Council, of its plans to increase capacity to 43 million passengers per year
Expansion plans for Stansted Airport have been approved by the Planning Inspectorate (PI) after an appeal. In January 2020 Uttlesford District Council (UDC) rejected proposals to increase Stansted's passenger cap from 35 million to 43 million a year. However, the councillors voted against the advice of council officers, who had recommended approval of proposals. The council had originally approved the plan, in November 2018 but only by the casting vote of the chairman; many councillors then had not read, or properly understood, all the documents. Then after the Residents for Uttlesford group took control from the Conservatives in May 2019, the decision was referred back to the planning committee - the rejection decision. Stansted already had permission to increase capacity from 28 million to 35 million passengers per year. The airport appealed against the decision, despite Covid and the near collapse of air travel in 2020. A public inquiry was held in January to March 2021 by the Planning Inspectorate. In its decision, the PI said: "there would be a limited degree of harm arising in respect of air quality and carbon emissions" but that was "far outweighed by the benefits of the proposal". UDC has also been ordered to pay the costs of Stansted's appeal.
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DfT and MHCLG both reject application to have Stansted expansion called in
There was a Planning Inquiry from January to March, into the rejection by Uttlesford council of the application by Stansted airport to increase its annual air passenger cap from 35 million passengers, to 43 mppa. Local campaign, Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) asked the government (two departments) to call in the application, for consideration by government, rather than just by Uttlesford District Council. Now SSE has received letters from both the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Transport, refusing the request for a call in. The MHCLG said "the Secretary of State has carefully considered your request but has decided in this case not to issue a direction for joint determination under s266 of the 1990 Act. The jurisdiction of the case therefore remains with the appointed planning Inspectors, and the Planning Inspectorate will inform you of a decision in due course." Grant Shapps (DfT) said that "the application is not of sufficient scale or significance to justify a direction. I will therefore not be making a direction in relation to this appeal." SSE said they were unsurprised, and concerned that this may set a bad precedent for appeals by other airports, where the planned increase in annual passengers is lower than that at Stansted.
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Fewer airport jobs the more automation is brought in
Airports produce plans for expansion, which always have extensive claims about the number of jobs that will create. In practice, the sector reduces the number of staff as much as possible, and numbers reduce by around 2.5% each year. The massive disruptions to air travel caused by the Covid pandemic may have accelerated some of the drive towards more automation, because of passengers not wanting to touch surfaces that have been touched by others, and not wanting to interact with strangers. There are plans for ever more facial recognition and biometric technology at immigration, so arriving passengers can be checked automatically, without the need for a member of Border Force staff. The hope is that this would be more efficient, take less time, and save the cost of an employee. There are also plans for automating check in, security and baggage, often via smartphones. "At Abu Dhabi Airport, Etihad Airways is testing a bag-drop system that uses AI to recognize unique scuff marks and other characteristics on nearly identical suitcases and match them to the correct passenger with a digital tag." There are also automatic rail shuttles around airports, and car park shuttles.
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Teenagers deliver petition to Jenrick, calling for a public inquiry into Leeds Bradford Airport expansion plans
Three West Yorkshire teenagers hand-deliver a petition signed by over 54,000 people to the Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick, on behalf of the Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport (GALBA). The petition asks Mr Jenrick to ‘call in’ controversial plans to expand Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) and hold a public inquiry. The teenage campaigners say airport expansion would undermine the UK’s chances of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and damage the government’s credibility as a climate leader, in the same year that it hosts the COP26 international climate conference. LBA’s planning application was approved by Leeds City Council on March 22 but GALBA wrote to Robert Jenrick asking him to hold a public inquiry into the expansion plans. MPs from Labour and Conservative parties have supported the call for a public inquiry. On April 6, Mr Jenrick postponed making a decision on this request, giving no explanation or timescale. Last week, GALBA joined a network of 16 national and local airport campaigns calling on the government to impose an immediate moratorium on all proposed UK airport expansions.
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New NEF report shows the climate impact of regional airport plans has been considerably underestimated
A report by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) says the climate impact of expansion plans at regional airports in England has been dramatically underestimated and would threaten the UK’s legally binding climate commitments. NEF calculated that proposals to expand 4 airports (Bristol, Leeds Bradford, Southampton and Stansted) will lead to an increase in CO2 emissions up to 8 times higher than the airports previously claimed. This means the alleged economic benefits claimed, from more aviation, were overestimated, as they ignore around £13.4bn worth of climate damage the extra flights could cause. Alex Chapman, the author of the report, said the findings raised concerns about the level of scrutiny the airport expansion proposals had received from government. Alex said: “The secretary of state should step in and conduct an independent review of all four of these proposals and their compatibility with the UK’s climate targets.” The airports all use unproven and undeveloped technologies to achieve future fuel-efficiency savings. Most airports only took account of CO2 of outbound flights, not of inbound flights, and ignored the non-CO2 impacts of flights.
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Luton scaling back airport expansion plans, delaying 2nd terminal, to save £1 billion
Luton Airport, which is owned by Luton council, is planning to scale back its expansion plans in order to save perhaps £1 billion. In 2019 the airport consulted on plans for a new terminal that would enable the annual number of passengers to be increased from 18 million to 32 million by 2039. There will now be a new consultation, later in 2021 or in 2022, for initially improvement of the existing terminal, and then eventually a second terminal, at some future date. The airport's finances have been seriously hit by Covid. The Council benefitted greatly from the airport (before Covid), in 2019 receiving a £19.1m, and £15.8m servicing debt. In 2020 the airport had huge public subsidy, and more will follow for 2021. Local campaigners will be looking very carefully at what might emerge from proposals for further passenger growth using the existing terminal. This might be by creative use of "permitted developments" which Luton Borough Council could approve on its own. If such growth could accommodate more than an additional 5 million passengers per year (taking Luton to 23Mppa) it would then become possible for the declared ambition to reach 32Mppa to be achievable without need for a DCO, as below the 10 Mppa threshold.