The case against expanding Bristol Airport
Expanding Bristol Airport – will it be good for the city? Bristol's Public Health doctors faced this question in 2006 during the consultation about more flights and expanded facilities.
The health of people in Bristol depends on many things, including a thriving economy, the quality of the places we live in, education for our children, the food we eat, opportunities for safe enjoyable physical activity, a fair and peaceful society, and so on. So as Public Health specialists we needed to look carefully at all the issues.
We all knew that expansion at Bristol Airport was said to be essential because it would create jobs and because everyone supposedly wants to fly more. But the downside was becoming harder to ignore.
It will increase the amount of aircraft noise and the volume of traffic and congestion through local communities. This will damage health, wellbeing and education for a sizeable proportion of those living nearby.
We knew that the health damage from noise, heavy traffic, and climate change were well backed by evidence.
But we wanted to be certain that we were not overlooking potential positive effects on health from new jobs, and from more people on low incomes being able to holiday abroad.
We looked at evidence from a study in Luton, and discovered that it is not the people on low incomes who are mostly using cheap flights. We also looked carefully at the reports that had been written on possible economic effects if Bristol Airport were to expand. These were the Tym Report, carried out for Bristol International Airport in October 2005, and the Whitelegg Report, done for the Parish Councils and Friends of the Earth in October 2005. They looked at trends and forecasts, and made different predictions about economic growth, about jobs at the airport, in the supply chain for the airport, from inbound tourism, and from construction.
They also suggested there would be losses to the South West economy if more tourists use cheap flights to go away for weekends and holidays.
We were surprised to find that the predictions of economic benefit in the Tym report were reached by pretty much ignoring the impending energy crunch, oil price rises, future green taxes, changes in business behaviour to reduce carbon footprints, and the impacts of recession.
The University of the West of England report for Business West, published in January 2008 after our submission, also seemed to overlook these looming restraints on growth.
The fact that these matters were ignored led us to feel any possible health benefits from the economic impacts of airport expansion were actually very uncertain.
Our group concluded that on health grounds the damage from airport expansion would definitely outweigh the possible benefits. We submitted our conclusions, from the West of England Public Health Climate Change Group, to North Somerset Council, on December 18, 2006 as part of the consultation.
Two years on, and the International Energy Agency has advised governments to prepare for inevitable and irreversible decline in world oil production. The Government's Stern Report has also said long-term economic damage from 'business as usual' and runaway climate change will be massively worse than the short-term economic cost of changing to a low-carbon economy.
The business case for airport expansion is now looking very shaky. Passenger numbers are down and people are looking closer to home for their holidays.
Airport bosses argue that more facilities at Bristol will create jobs and help get us out of the recession. But others say that new jobs must be in sectors with a future – such as renewable energy, local food production and local recreation.
The Bristol International Airport company has no responsibility for impacts beyond their own short-term profits. It is their job to try to persuade us expansion will be good for Bristol.
But as Public Health specialists we take a broader view and our conclusion is that expanding the airport will do more harm than good for Bristol people.
Dr Angela E Raffle B Sc (Hons) MB ChB FFPH on behalf of the West of England Public Health Climate Change Group
2 Comments
by CD, south Bristol
Friday, August 07 2009, 8:03AM
“Haldane Dodd doesnt have to live in the villages that are being blighted by 24/7 airport traffic; clearly shown by his preference for life in Geneva. He is the typical example of a pro-expansion supporter who doesnt care less about the damage caused to rural life, the environment or people's daily lives in the airport catchment area....just so long as he can fly doorstep to doorstep for his own convenience. The "thousands of" jobs created by airports are guaranteed to be mundane, low-level, non-career types that pay poorly and attract little to no interest. As airports grow, they gobble up the surrounding land with support services, hotels, car parking, etc which does nothing to enhance the natural tranquility of a west-country rural setting. The economy will shrink, as tourists take their money out of the country; they certainly dont come here and spend it in the villages or indeed the nearby towns.
As for sustainable biofuels....there's no such thing. Biofuels are already the topic of fierce arguments, especially abroad, as land is put over to biofuel production rather than essential food. Ultimately, people must go hungry while the aviation industry continues to rake in its profits.
The essentially rural nature of North Somerset has been under threat for years, thanks to to the greed of large businesses who use psychological tactics to "convince" local authorities that their businesses will bring "wealth and prosperity" to the area. Of course it will, in their pockets, certainly no-one else's. People in the world are waking up fast to lies, spin and deceit....Bristol airport expansion benefits is just one of them. All lies.
Maybe one day, when governments finally release Tesla's anti-gravity designs, we will be able to do away with runways, aviation fuel and chronic noise.”
by Haldane, Geneva, Switzerland
Thursday, May 28 2009, 12:14PM
“Dr Raffle seems to miss a number of important points about the future of air transport in her assessment.
Air travel growth has always rebounded from temporary fluctuations. This recession will be temporary and, as inevitably happens, passenger numbers will grow again. So how can we justify this growth when faced with climate change?
For a start, aircraft today are cleaner and more efficient than they have ever been - in fact, since Bristol Airport first started operating in 1957, aircraft fuel efficiency has increased some 80%. And the industry is not stopping there ¿ in fact the latest generation of aircraft have per-passenger per-kilometre fuel efficiencies similar to hybrid cars.
Aircraft are quieter with fewer emissions than ever before. The wings for Airbus' A380, made in Filton, help to contribute to an aircraft that is amazingly quiet. In fact, noise impacts have reduced significantly at airports all over the world as older, noisier, series of aircraft are withdrawn from the fleet. I am sure many people will remember seeing the great sooty trails and thunderous roar left behind by aircraft operating a couple of decades ago - for the most part, these are retired now.
By around 2017 the two largest aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, will have the next generation of narrowbody jet (the most regular visitors to Bristol, such as 737s and A320s) available, utilising the newest materials and low-emissions engines such as Pratt & Whitney's geared turbofan.
This is not to mention the introduction of sustainable biofuels into the aviation industry. Once seen as a pipe-dream, these new fuels are currently being tested on aircraft and once certified as safe, will likely be on commercial flights as early as 3 - 5 years from now. They provide up to an 80% reduction in carbon lifecycle emissions compared with current fossil fuels.
All this is to say that, as an industry, we are not sitting on our hands. We do provide jobs. We do provide economic growth. And, importantly, we allow people the ability to travel and experience the world.
The global aviation industry produces around 2% of world human-made CO2 emissions. Is this too much? Absolutely. That is why we are being proactive in taking responsibility for our footprint - just as every government, industrial sector and individual must find ways to reduce their impact.
But growth in travel and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive. You can have both, as long as they are responsible and sustainable. We firmly believe we are taking the responsible path as an industry - protecting both economic growth and the environment.
Haldane Dodd
Air Transport Action Group, Geneva”