The leader of the biggest group on Bristol City Council has described another expansion of Bristol Airport as ‘downright dangerous’, because of the contribution to the climate emergency that saw large parts of the region suffer from widespread flooding.
That’s the message from Cllr Emma Edwards, the group leader of the Greens at City Hall in Bristol, who called on the Government to ‘withdraw all support for airport expansion’ until carbon emissions are falling and national planning policies are ‘net-zero compliant’.
Bristol Airport unveiled the full details of its plans to increase passenger numbers from the present 10 million a year to 15 million a year in the next 12 years, yesterday. The airport would see the size of the terminal building almost doubling in size, a longer runway, flights to the US and the Middle East, more car parking and another hotel built.
The airport recently began its current expansion from a maximum of nine million passengers a year to 12 million a year, with a public transport hub being built at the moment. That expansion was only allowed in 2022 after a four year battle with a coalition of local residents’ groups concerned with more traffic, night flights and noise from the airport, and environmentalists from Bristol and across the region, concerned at the increasing impact of air travel on climate change.
That coalition, the Bristol Airport Action Network, ultimately lost its battle to prevent the expansion to a maximum number of passengers of 12 million a year in the High Court in 2022. Today, it has announced it would be opposing this new expansion plan, and branded it ‘highly irresponsible’.
Bristol Airport announced the full details of its second expansion on Monday, the day after much of the region was left underwater, and on the day the owners of the airport – the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund – announced it was selling the airport and others it owns.
Cllr Edwards (Green, Bishopston & Ashley Down) said the Government needed to step in and make clear its position on airport expansions. “Bristol Green Councillors have always been vocal in opposing Bristol Airport’s expansion plans and this time is no different,” she said.
“Where Bristol paved the way in declaring a climate emergency, we must now lead by example through our actions. This weekend we saw floods across the West of England that will only increase in severity as the planet warms. To unnecessarily increase carbon emissions that will make this worse is not only irresponsible, it’s downright dangerous.”
“However, national planning laws on which this application will rely have not yet been assessed for their compatibility with delivering the Government target of net-zero aviation by 2050. This means that planning authorities are reliant on out-of-date policies when determining applications for airport expansion. The Government must withdraw all support for airport expansion until aviation emissions are falling and national planning policies are net-zero compliant. I urge everyone to fill in this consultation to make sure their views are known,” she added.
The leader of Bristol City Council during the last battle over Bristol Airport expansion was Labour Mayor Marvin Rees – who backed the expansion, claiming it would ultimately reduce carbon emissions because more flights from Bristol would mean passengers in the south west wouldn’t have to travel to London or Birmingham as much.
But Labour figures were divided, with the airport being a major employer in the region. South Bristol Labour MP Karin Smyth said she was in favour of the first expansion, but Labour’s West of England Metro Mayor Dan Norris came out against the expansion, as did the majority of Labour councillors at City Hall too.
North Somerset now has a Labour MP for the first time in its history, Sadik Al-Hassan. His response to the airport’s launch of its consultation was to share a picture of him and Bristol Airport chief executive Dave Lees on X, formerly Twitter, along with a link to the online consultation, and a message urging everyone to get involved. “Bristol Airport will be running a consultation until 31 January seeking feedback about the plans including expanding the airport from 12m to 15m passengers a year,” he said.
The Bristol Airport Action Network is very firmly against the latest expansion. A spokesperson for the campaign group said the plans would see an extra 14,000 flights a year, including 1,000 more night flights and 39 more flights every day.
Describing the plan as ‘utterly irresponsible’, Richard Baxter, from BAAN, said: “Let’s face it – the airport’s management has decided that it wants to expand the airport and to pursue greater profits at the expense of the local community and the environment. Consulting local people is probably intended as little more than a tick-box exercise.”
“Local residents will have to complete this questionnaire without even fully knowing the impacts of the current permission to expand to 12 mppa. Millions more passengers will undoubtedly result in more traffic congestion on local roads, increased air and noise pollution as well as rising greenhouse emissions that will contribute to climate breakdown. We strongly encourage people to complete the consultation to give the airport a clear message that Bristol Airport is big enough,” he added.
Linking the continued growth in air travel to the climate change that has seen more frequent devastating floods in Europe in recent years, a BAAN spokesperson pointed out that only in the last few weeks have passengers from Bristol Airport flown to holiday destinations in places like Spain, to find themselves arriving in disaster zones.
“BAAN believe that far from growing airports we should be preparing for numbers to shrink, as aviation decarbonisation fails to deliver, and the industry is increasingly asked to pay for its pollution and carbon use,” a spokesperson said.
“In addition, the environment has yet again been in the headlines with adverse weather events that have been attributed to climate change, driven by rising carbon emissions. This weekend many people and communities have been affected by storm Bert and at the beginning of November we witnessed the lethal devastation of flooding in the region around Valencia followed by further flooding in Catalonia, around Malaga and in the Algarve. An increasing number of people are finding that they are flying on holiday into potential disaster zones with their destinations being hit by floods, droughts and wildfires,” he added.
Bristol Airport’s plans and the consultation exercise does address climate change. Chief executive Dave Lees said the airport is on the way to reduce its own carbon emissions from its ground operations.
“We recognise there will be concerns about carbon emissions resulting from airport growth and the implications for climate change,” he said. “So we are bringing forward proposals for what we consider to be responsible growth, growth that is both within the current UK carbon budgets required to meet net zero for all emissions by 2050, and with measures to achieve net zero airport operations by 2030. Meanwhile, we are also committed to working with partners in our region on aviation decarbonisation,” he added.