Action Briefing Oct 2002 - Nov 2002
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

How Do You Sleep At Night?

On 23rd July, the Government published its Regional Air Studies, setting out a policy framework for the next thirty years of aviation. The seven studies, undertaken by the former Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR), covered the entire UK and, as many had feared, were a no-holds-barred blueprint for massive expansion of Britain’s airports. Condemnation from environmental, community and residents groups was swift. West Midlands Friends of the Earth warned of a potential “Spaghetti Junction in the sky”.

The proposals rest on highly speculative and disputed forecasts that passenger numbers could more than treble over the next 30 years. If expansion of airport capacity in the already overburdened South East is ruled out then the Government will be looking to the West Midlands to accommodate the projected growth in air travel. The result would be environmental destruction on a massive scale, even more noise and disturbance for local people trapped under flight paths, more pollution, more traffic congestion and more ugly commercial sprawl - and that’s before we even get on to the issues of air and ground safety and aviation’s contribution to global climate change.

One option is to expand Birmingham and other regional airports. Alternatively, Birmingham International could be closed and replaced with a huge new airport between Coventry and Rugby, smack in the middle of the Warwickshire countryside. On this the Government’s strategy is clear - drive a wedge between, on the one hand, Birmingham residents eager to see the back of BIA and, on the other, the communities of Church Lawford and Kings Newnham who face obliteration by a new airport development. Both communities risk being labelled NIMBYs (“Not In My Back Yard”), concerned only that they are spared the impact. It would be foolishness to take a gamble on the problem being dumped on another community. Instead we must challenge the prevailing dogma that growth in air travel is both beneficial and inevitable and that airport expansion must happen somewhere. The UK simply does not need more airport capacity ANYWHERE. The discredited policy of “predict and provide” that informs Government thinking on air transport must be abandoned once and for all.

Rather than trying to meet every overblown growth forecast, the Government should instead be managing the demand for air travel by ending the £7 billion worth of hidden subsidies and tax breaks that the aviation industry currently enjoys. For example, there is no tax on aviation fuels, no VAT on plane tickets and airport ground vehicles run on tax-reduced red diesel. According to the Green Party, the aviation industry is so heavily subsidised that it receives the equivalent of £180 per year from every man, woman and child in the UK.

A truly forward thinking air transport policy would ensure that air travel pays fully for its environmental and social impacts and this means - yes, more expensive flights. If you blanche at such an infringement of your “freedom to fly” spare a thought for the millions of people whose basic human right to good night’s sleep is violated all year round by aircraft noise. And spare a thought for those who will see their villages razed to the ground and their countryside trashed by new runways and airports.

And finally, spare a thought for yourself. Since July last year the Government has kept a secret list of thirty two sites across the country, any one of which may have become the site of a second Heathrow. More or less every community in the Midlands, perhaps yours, could have found itself waging a campaign against a new airport in its back yard. Sleep well - and don’t have nightmares.

James Botham