Bristol Airport begins its appeal into North Somerset Council’s rejection of its planning expansion which would allow it to expand facilities at the airport, writes Nick Harding, of UK Aviation.
In February last year, the council voted 18-7 to reject Bristol Airports plans for expansion which would see Bristol Airport capable of handling up to 12m(million) passengers per year. A move which went against advice from the council’s planners.
The council faced protests on the evening of the vote from local community groups as well as paid civil disobedience groups such as Extinction Rebellion.
Bristol Airport, which is owned by Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, can currently accommodate up to 9m passengers per year but new facilities would see the airport accommodate up to 12m. There is no application for expansion to the runway.
The local economy would be one of the biggest benefactors of the expansion with the changes set to increase the value of goods and services produced in the local area by £1.4bn over the next 10 years as well as increase employment.
Local action group Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN) says that it is readying itself to fight the appeal. BAAN activist Stephen Clarke said: “It’s a big slap in the face for the local communities who fought hard and overwhelmingly voiced their opinion on the airport’s greedy expansion plans.”
While the appeal process formally begins on Tuesday, January 12, the actual decision will not come until the end of a 4-week public inquiry scheduled for July 2021.
Bristol Airport is a vital regional airport for the South West with a catchment ranging from Cornwall and Devon, South Wales through to Gloucester and Wiltshire. It is a hub for Ryanair, easyJet, Tui and, from April this year, Jet2.
Nailsea resident Dawn McGhee is totally against any expansion.
She said:  "I know that Bristol International Airport provides a great service to the south west region, both in terms of air transport and provision of local jobs. 
"As it stands, it has the capacity to expand to 10 million passengers per annum, thus providing more jobs and flights.
"However, the airport is appealing against North Somerset Council’s decision to reject its application to expand and in a time when the government is seeking to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, this makes no sense.  

"North Somerset councillors and thousands of people who registered their objection online knew this. 
"Directly after the decision, councillor leader Don Davies said 'What the committee has considered is that the detrimental effect of the expansion of the airport on this area and the wider impact on the environment outweighs the narrower benefits to airport expansion'.
'The committee for climate change sixth carbon budget published in December 2020, reveals some important facts about aviation: in 2018 39.3 million tons of carbon were produced by aviation in the UK. The report advises ‘no net capacity expansion at UK airports'. 

'Much store has been placed by Bristol Airport in technological developments to bring emissions down, and whilst these may be useful things to consider in a net zero world, the CCC report also concludes that full electric planes and hydrogen technology will not be available by 2050 given that research and development from concept to production and then moving from a prototype to a usable fleet generally takes several decades to achieve. It predicts that burning hydrocarbon fuel is likely to continue until 2050 and beyond.

'What this means is that even with no change, the airport will be polluting the atmosphere and increasing global warming over the next 30 years.