Birmingham Airport anti-Noise Group

Newsletter #6 Contact us

January 2004

• Darling dumps on Brum
• The Birmingham Alternative
• Little White Lies . .
• So what now?
• Public Meeting: Airport fight must go on

Darling dumps on Brum
Dismay at White Paper but the fight must go on

On 16th December 2003, the Department for Transport (DfT) published its Aviation White Paper. As we feared, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has given his backing to a second runway as well as an extension of the existing runway at Birmingham Airport. If these plans are not stopped, by 2030 BIA will be the size of Heathrow Airport today.

The Government has conceded that, as we had maintained all along, "simply building more and more capacity to meet potential demand would have major, and unacceptable, environmental impacts". And yet the White Paper recommends a vast program of airport expansion across the UK.

The White Paper sets no upper limit on how much additional air travel the Government wants to promote. The economic benefits of air transport are assumed to be so obvious and overwhelming that the impact on local communities can be regarded as an acceptable price to pay, wherever "mitigation" measures are deemed "impractical".

On the brighter side, plans for a new airport between Coventry and Rugby have been scrapped, hopefully for good. BANG congratulates the Warwickshire campaigners and we hope they will now join us in our ongoing campaign to stop Birmingham becoming the forgotten casualty of the aviation industry’s demands for growth.

Rather than letting these developments be forced on us through a speeded-up planning process, we must push for an extended national debate on air transport policy. The White Paper is not the last word. Attend the public meeting on 21st January, 8pm at Tile Cross Residents Club, to find out more and join the campaign.

James Botham, Secretary

The Birmingham Alternative

The White Paper gives a ringing endorsement of 'The Birmingham Alternative', the Airport Company’s "environmentally friendly" vision of a second runway. The Paper says "of the options proposed, there was strongest support for the ‘Birmingham Alternative’ proposal". This is odd, since the Alternative was never one of the four options listed in the formal consultation documents!

Published in October 2002, the Alternative proposed a 2,000m long (shorter by 600m) second runway, requiring 290 hectares of land, sparing 109 properties and avoiding the loss of Bickenhill Meadow Site of Special Scientific Interest and Bickenhill Conservation Area. Only smaller and quieter types of aircraft would use the new short runway and it would not operate at night.

However, it would still expose 81,000 people to aircraft noise levels of 57dBA, the Government's lower limit of noise disturbance, by 2020. Even BIA's figures, which take account of "long term expectation of noise improvement", state that 103,000 people would be affected. And what's to stop BIA applying to extend the second runway in the future?

Extending the existing runway would allow larger and more fully laden aircraft to fly longer distances non-stop, creating additional disturbance for people under the present flight path. In addition, if BIA is successful in increasing the number of off-peak movements from its existing runway to the same levels as during the peak times this will put up air traffic volume still further. The main purpose of the second runway would be to allow additional services at peak time, not to act as an alternative to the existing runway, so there will be little relief for people living under the existing flight path.

Ultimately, it's the same dilemma the consultation posed for us in 2002. We risk being lulled into accepting what seems like the least damaging alternative. This might appeal to the campaign-weary pragmatists among us but in the long run we will be worse off.

Little White Lies. . .

The Aviation White Paper forecasts a massive growth in air transport from 180 million passenger movements a year (mppa) in 2000 to over 500mppa in 2030. But its prescription for huge airport expansion rests on a questionable diagnosis of the problem.

Noise and air pollution
The White Paper acknowledges the problem of rising aircraft noise and air pollution faced by airport communities but it fails to grant those communities or their local authorities the powers they need to manage local airport impacts. Communities must be given legal guarantees that noise and pollution limits will not be broken as well as full compensation for the pain their bear on behalf of those not living with an airport as a neighbour.

The Paper states that the Government's "basic aim is to limit and, where possible, reduce the number of people in the UK significantly affected by aircraft noise" but that it prefers to see noise control "mostly delivered locally". But local authorities have no powers to regulate noise under the Environmental Protection Act. The Government, on the other hand, could regulate noise at all airports if it chose to but it has only ever designated Heathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead for this purpose.

Aircraft technology
The White Paper expects noise and pollution to be tackled partly through applying more stringent technical standards to limit emissions and noise at source and through adopting better technology. This could cut emissions by 1% a year but the gain will be more than offset by the forecast growth rate of 4-6% a year. On noise no major technical improvements are expected and the Paper itself predicts a "deterioration in the noise climate as growth in air traffic overtakes the rate of technological advance".

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is expected to progressively tighten aircraft noise ratings or 'certifications' in time but flight tests carried out by the DfT since 1999 have found these certifications to be seriously flawed and the Government has had to admit that certifications do not reflect the true scale of aircraft noise.

Night Flights
The Paper promises to "bear down on night noise" while striking "a fair balance between local disturbance, the limits of social acceptability and the economic benefits of night flights". Evidently, the DfT has forgotten its failure in 2001 to convince the European Court of Human Rights that night flights from Heathrow were economically important enough to justify waking people up.

Meeting the costs
There is little sign that the Government understands the rising costs of air travel to society at large. In March 2003, the DfT and HM Treasury estimated that local air quality costs for all passengers at UK airports in 2000 were in the range £119-£236 million a year, while noise costs at all UK airports in 2000 were estimated at £25 million a year. In 2003, Friends of the Earth’s conservative estimate put the overall costs of aviation to society at between £2.3 and £6.8 billion a year. By 2030, depending on how much expansion is allowed, this could rise to between £5.8 and £18.7 billion a year.

The White Paper fails to identify the need to remove aviation’s tax benefits. Hidden subsidies to air transport in the form of tax exemptions on fuel and tickets cost the country an estimated £9.2 billion, with every person on the average wage (£25,000 per annum) forking out £557 a year for aviation before they get anywhere near an airport (or before an airport gets anywhere near them). Such a large, and rising, sum of money would be far better spent on meeting the UK's more pressing transport needs, such as safer routes to school and rail and bus services, than on indulging a luxury like air travel.

Tourism
The Paper is quick to point out the significance of inbound tourism while belittling concerns about outbound tourism's effect on the domestic economy. The fact that foreign visitors to the UK are still spending less than British tourists are overseas, creating a record 'tourism deficit' of £15.2 billion in 2002, is ignored. Neither is there any recognition of the fact regional economies outside London and the south east rely on UK holidaymakers for their tourist income, or how cheap air travel harms traditional UK resorts.

The economy
Alistair Darling's bold claim that "our economy depends on air travel" is misleading and wrong. The Government has never been to confirm a link between air transport and productivity growth in the UK economy. In a mature economy like the UK's with an already well developed transport network, new infrastructure does not significantly raise economic performance.

The White Paper states that the air transport sector accounts for 2% (£13 billion) of the UK Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but gives no indication as to how this figure has been calculated. In 2000, the Government was relying on an estimate of aviation's GDP contribution that wrongly included retail and catering at airports, spending that would take place elsewhere and so cannot be attributed to the aviation. At that time, the air transport sector actually accounted for just 1.2% of GDP, between agriculture and legal services. Aviation was not even in the top twenty-five most important sectors, no more important to the economy than the sewage industry.

The Paper estimates that aviation contributes £500 million of added value to the Midlands' economy (1.06% of the Midlands' GDP) but omits to mention the estimated £824 million tax break aviation receives in the West Midlands alone. In addition, there is increasing evidence that airports and air travel export income, and therefore jobs, out of the UK and its regional economies.

"Economic instruments"
The Paper sets great store by "economic instruments" such as "noise and emissions-related landing charges" and emissions trading. This is a hopelessly weak compromise. Emissions trading depends on complex and uncertain international negotiations and will take years to introduce. What's more, it sends completely the wrong message, namely that pollution is a commodity to be exchanged, rather than a hazard that needs to be controlled. Neither does simply charging airlines for breaching an upper limit for noise or pollution compensate for the problems that massive airport expansion brings. Only by managing demand and curbing expansion can these problems be addressed.

The UK takes on Presidency of the European Union in 2005 and should use this position to press for a Europe-wide tax on aviation fuel and an emissions charge. In the meantime, there is nothing to stop the UK putting VAT and fuel tax on domestic flights or increasing Air Passenger Duty.

Employment
The White Paper reveals that aviation "directly supports 200,000 [jobs], and indirectly up to three times as many". In the Midlands, aviation supports 9480 jobs directly, and 41,250 indirectly. Airports will continue to exist and will continue to employ people but this is not an excuse to proceed with expansion. The potential exists for more and better jobs in other areas of the economy, if only the investment could be freed up from aviation by a fair tax regime. Moreover, the real threat to jobs in the aviation industry is the low cost airlines which force established operators like British Airways to slash jobs (10,000 over the last three years in the case of BA, with more losses expected).

"Failing to meet demand"
The White Paper paints a pessimistic picture of "damage [to] the economy and national prosperity" if more airport capacity is not provided. Nowhere does the Paper even entertain the alternative scenario in which the growth forecasts are not met, either owing to fuel becoming too expensive, or pollution levels becoming intolerable, or both. No mention is made of managing the demand for air travel with proper taxation even though, according to the DfT's own computer model, this approach would make new runways and airports unnecessary.

Rail alternatives to short-haul air travel
The White Paper is grudging about the potential of rail services to replace short-haul air travel, even for internal flights in the UK. We are told that, according to the Strategic Rail Authority, improvements to the West and East Coast Main Lines "are not expected to affect future passenger demand at the most crowded airports by more than a few percentage points". This is the flawed logic of predict and provide. Providing new rail infrastructure will not of itself reduce demand for air travel while ever the price of air travel remains artificially low. We will only see environmental benefits if the aviation industry is prevented from making use of the capacity freed-up by a shift to rail to operate new air services.

Traffic Growth
The White Paper plays down the potential impacts of increased road traffic resulting from airport expansion and the associated developments. Airports contribute to local pollution as much from the additional road traffic they generate as from the aircraft themselves and 90% of journeys to UK airports are by car. Barring a massive shift to public transport, expansion at BIA will inevitably lead to more road building, beginning with the widening of the M42 motorway but soon followed by new access roads and other road widening schemes within the conurbation.

So what now?

The Aviation White Paper does not itself give permission for, nor rule out, any particular airport development.

Nor does the ‘Birmingham Alternative’ comprise a formal Development Proposal. BIA will have to draw up its draft Master Plan subject to full public consultation, followed by a detailed planning application and a viable business case first for extending the existing runway and then for the second runway. There will be opportunities at each of these stages to contest the proposals.

Hard copies of the White Paper (priced £25) and/or a free summary document can be ordered by telephoning 0845 100 5554. Alternatively, the document can be viewed on-line at www.dft.gov.uk/aviation/whitepaper/

Public Meeting: Airport fight must go on!

• Wednesday 21st January 2004
  
• Tile Cross Residents Club, Blackmoor Croft, off St. Giles Road, Tile Cross
  
• 8.00pm-10.00pm

Hear from:

• Chris Crean - West Midlands Friends of the Earth
  
• Councillor Jim Ryan - Labour, Bickenhill
  
• Councillor Ian Ward - Labour, Shard End
  
• Hertta Hussein - BANG campaigner and Castle Bromwich resident

Can you help with delivering leaflets for the public meeting? If you would be able to put a few leaflets through letterboxes in your street then call James Botham on 0121 632 6909 or email us.