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Alternative Masterplan for Bristol Airport published
Following controversy around Bristol Airport’s publication of its ‘masterplan to 2040’ which revealed its ambitions to expand to 15 million annual passengers, an alternative long-term plan for the airport has been floated.
Residents and longstanding campaigners have produced an Alternative Masterplan which presents a different vision for the airport’s future.
The authors say that, unlike the airport’s original plan, it properly considers factors such as noise and air pollution, congestion and environmental impact.
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Put together by Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN), a group that has been protesting the airport’s expansion since April 2019, it serves to represent communities local to the airport who have concerns about congestion on nearby roads, increased night flights, nuisance parking and pollution.
“You can’t hold a conversation outside in the garden, you can’t talk to someone right next to you, you pause for two minutes while a plane goes over – three minutes later, there’s another one,” said resident Richard Osborne on a recent protest against expansion.
“The amount of traffic that will be on the A38 and surrounding roads is going to cause a problem – we already do have congestion there and it’s going to get worse…” said Richard Baxter of BAAN.
The protests took place outside each of the airport’s three in-person consultations last week, in Wrington, Cleeve and Felton, where BAAN said the “vast majority of people attending had major concerns over their plans.”
These include a 10 per cent flight increase up to 100,000 flights per year, an increase in passenger capacity to 15 million per year by 2036, new long-haul flights including to the east coast of America and the Middle East, a larger terminal building and expanded car parks.
The campaign group say the airport is putting profit before environment and people.
At peaceful protests outside the airport’s recent consultations in communities local to the airport, residents raised concerns including that more flights will result in more cars on the roads, future road-widening and building expanded car parks which will compromise biodiversity
The Climate Change Committee scientific advisory body has said a halt to airport expansions is required in order for the UK government to achieve its net zero targets.
As part of their ten-point alternative vision for Bristol Airport, BAAN suggest the carbon impact of each flight should be clearly displayed on tickets and adverts, in easily accessible terms – for example, that one return flight from Bristol to Malaga produces 0.6 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of an average UK’s household’s electricity-associated emissions over an entire year.
Other suggestions include a cap on passenger capacity at 12 million until progress has been made on sustainable flight alternatives to fossil fuels, and a reduction in night flights which have been scientifically proven to harm residents’ mental and physical health through sleep deprivation.
The vision calls for funding of a mass transit system to meet the 40 per cent target of passengers reaching the airport by public transport, with the current figure at 16 per cent – where public transport options are widely recognised as woefully inadequate.
The owners of Bristol Airport, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, made a profit of £52m from the airport last year
BAAN has also called into question the economic case for expansion, stating that contrary to the airport’s claim that expansion to 12 million passengers would benefit the region to the tune of £380m, a New Economics Foundation analysis of their report found the true benefit to be less than a third of that amount, at around £100m.
“The airport largely presents a monetary view of its future, based on maximising profits for foreign shareholders and paying lipservice to how further expansion will impact the lives of local people and the wider environment.
“We’re not saying that Bristol Airport should close, or that people shouldn’t take an annual holiday in the sun,” the authors say. “By taking all these actions [in the alternative master plan], the airport will show that it understands the impacts its activities have on local residents and on the climate crisis, and that it has a role in limiting those impacts.”
BAAN are seeking responses to their survey of residents’ views on the airports expansion plans. Submit your views here.
All images: BAAN
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