‘We will take the fight to a national level’

A few weeks has now passed since we received the news that the biggest carbon emitter in the region (by a large margin), the proposed expansion of Bristol Airport, has had its final legal barrier removed by the courts.

These are my reflections on the campaign and and what has been achieved by the many thousands of people involved.

What has happened?

Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN) have been informed that they cannot take forward their appeal against the planning decision to the Court of Appeal.

This means there is no longer any legal impediment to stop the airport ignoring the huge majority of local opinion and democratic institutions that have rejected the their expansion plans.

Firstly to confirm the planning position; the airport can now expand by an extra two million passengers a year, build a multi-storey car park on Greenbelt land, massively increase the number of summer night flights and congest the local roads with an extra 10,000 cars a day.

Bristol Airport Action Network was formed in 2019 to challenge the expansion of Bristol Airport – photo: BAAN

Nothing could more clearly demonstrate that the owners of Bristol Airport (Ontario Teachers Pension Plan) put profit above any consideration of the climate and ecological crisis or the considerations of local people.

BAAN, led by a small group of active volunteers, have pulled together a coalition of concerned organisations, local councils and many thousands of local people, to resist the expansion.

The decision has been considered by a local planning committee (who decisively rejected the plans) a ten week local planning inquiry and a High Court hearing.

On the face of it, because the airport have ultimately been given permission, it may look like this campaign has been less than successful but in fact this could not be further from the truth.

As evidence, here are some of the achievements of the campaigners who have come together and objected against these plans which has developed into the largest environmental campaign in the region for many years.

1. The airports plans have been delayed since December 2019; over four years. That means we have saved up to four million tonnes of carbon and other emissions into our atmosphere. For context; the annual emissions of all of Bristol’s cars buses and lorries is 500,000 tonnes.

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Read more: Appeal against Bristol Airport expansion refused 

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2. We have informed many people locally and beyond about the issues around aviation emissions through demonstrations, town-hall events, articles, broadcast and print media. This has led to the formation and development of many local groups concerned about the airport and climate change.

We have also helped to forge long-lasting links between existing activist groups working on related issues. Perhaps most importantly a trusted network of trust and friendship has been developed in the area which will undoubtedly be utilised in many other campaigns.

3. By steadfastly working through the entire legal and planning process, we have bought new clarity to the fact that it is simply not fit-for-purpose.

As an example of this, we have definitively demonstrated that there is a gap in the planning system meaning that no one; not the Secretary of State or the Planning Inspectors, have actually taken into account the extra carbon emissions from the extra 13,000 planes that will fly from Bristol Airport because of this decision. This cannot be right.

An extra 13,000 planes could fly from Bristol Airport under expansion plans – image: Bristol Airport

4. The outrage caused by this decision, and the fact that up to twenty other airports have plans to expand, has galvanised the beginning of a national campaign against the growth of aviation in the UK.

BAAN recently organised an in-person meeting with fifteen other regional and national groups who are campaigning on this issue and we have agreed to work together to stop this impossible business-as-usual approach of continual expansion of aviation.

The aviation industry and government are planning for a further increase in UK passengers of more than 70 per cent by 2050 while claiming that costly and unproven technologies, and a rapid scaling of alternative fuels, will help the sector to achieve net-zero by the same date. Its very clearly a fantasy being used to justify decisions like that at Bristol.

So what next?

BAAN is not going away. We know (because they have told us many times) that Bristol Airport have plans to expand from the current ten million passengers a year to twenty million.

They now know clearly that the vast majority of local people and politicians will be steadfastly against this but in view of their actions to date that is unlikely to stop them pushing forward with their destructive plans.

Therefore, we shall be vigilant and wait for their next planning application. We do not expect the wait to be very long and again, we will do everything we can to stop them.

Meanwhile, the focus for us as a group will be to bring the lessons learned in Bristol to the wider national campaign which we are currently involved in planning with other organisations. If you want to receive more information about that please email info@noairportexpansion.org to register your interest.

Bristol Airport themselves pretend to be concerned about local stakeholders and the climate but nothing could be clearer evidence than this process that they simply don’t give a damn about either.

What they must understand though is that we are not going away; on the contrary we will be energised by this ridiculous decision and will take the fight to a national level.

Stephen Clarke is co-coordinator for Bristol Airport Action Network

Main photo: Stephen Clarke

Read next:

• Bristol Airport expansion given green light by high court
• Bristol Airport clashes with anti-expansion campaigners in court
• New Bristol developments accused of ‘greenwashing’

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