Action Briefing Oct 2005 - Nov 2005
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Clash of the Master Plans

Birmingham International Airport (BIA) will soon publish a new 'Master Plan' setting out the airport company's strategy for delivering a three-fold expansion in line with the Government's twenty-five-year vision of UK air transport growth.

In the green corner, as it were, an alternative Master Plan covering the whole Midlands region was launched on 7th October by the West Midlands Regional Sustainability Forum (WMRSF) and East Midlands Transport Activists' Round Table. Entitled The Midlands' Aviation Master Plan: Managing Midlands Air Transport Sustainably for the 21st Century, the report criticises the Department for Transport's "fundamentally flawed" December 2003 White Paper, The Future of Air Transport, for "fail[ing] to take the wider social and environmental costs associated with aviation into consideration."

The White Paper required all airports handling over 20,000 passenger movements a year to produce (or update their existing) Master Plans by the end of 2004, a deadline which has since slipped to the end of 2005, leaving us all in tantalising suspense. However, the publication on 1st February of the 'High Level Statement of Intent', an outline summary of BIA's expansion plans, as well as the airport's Master Plan Review Wider Reference Conference in May, gave us a good idea of what to expect.

BIA is forecast to be handling 32 million passengers per annum by 2030 (over three times the number today), equivalent to 278,000 air traffic movements (ATMs) a year. The infrastructure required to support this growth includes: a 400-metre extension to existing runway by 2012-13 plus local diversion of the A45 and Damson Parkway to accommodate the extension; a third terminal building; extensions to the existing terminals; a 2,000-metre second runway by 2020; 30,000 extra car parking spaces; a dedicated airport access junction; plus additional facilities including three 150-metre runway starter strips, a new air traffic control tower, fuel farm, engine ground-running pen, and parallel taxiway.

But it's not just more air traffic that will be generated by the airport's expansion. Arup's surface access study, one of 14 independent studies commissioned by BIA for the Master Plan, expects peak-time (8-9am and 5-6pm) traffic flow, measured in vehicles per hour (vph), around the airport to surge from 1,600 vph in 2003 to 4,600 vph in 2030 on the airport links; from 2,050 vph to 3,800 vph on Bickenhill Lane; from 10,150 vph to 18,300 vph on the M42; and from 3,900 vph to 6,300 vph on the A45. In the case of the A45, this will mostly be background traffic as most passenger traffic to BIA uses the M42. But congestion is already acute at Junction 6 of the M42 and Clock Junction; after these two 'pinch points' have reached the limit of their operation, in 2015 and 2020 respectively, a new dedicated access junction will be created.

In Arup's view, there is little chance of BIA raising the proportion of journeys to and from the airport by public transport from 15 per cent of total journeys today to 25 per cent by 2030, in line with Government targets, without nationwide traffic reduction strategies, such as road user charging on the motorway network. Not that it would make much difference even if they did hit 25 per cent; any percentage increase in public transport 'modal share' would be accompanied by a massive increase in the absolute number of car journeys, as the forecasts of future car parking needs makes plain. Assuming that the airport's current policy of unrestricted customer car parking is retained, parking provision will have to rise from 13,222 car parking spaces in 2004 to at least 40,148 spaces (assuming they achieve 32 million ppa with a 25 per cent public transport modal share), and possibly to as much as 47,012 spaces (assuming a 15 per cent public transport modal share) by 2030.

Pie in the sky
Of course, all this crystal-ball gazing could turn out to be mere pie in the sky. New forecasts commissioned from Aviasolutions for the High Level Statement of Intent project that air traffic movements at the airport in 2030 could be 72,000 ATMs lower than the 35,000 ATMs forecast by the White Paper. The Statement concludes: "the variation between Aviasolutions ATM forecasts and the DfT . . . would suggest that, on operational demand terms, the target date for the proposed second runway could be slightly deferred from the original 2016 date in the White Paper" (paragraph 3.1.14, p14).

At Birmingham FoE's 10th October speaker evening at the Warehouse Cafe (jointly organised with Birmingham Airport anti-Noise Group - BANG) local campaigner Maggie Throup and Lorely Burt MP (Liberal Democrat, Solihull) reaffirmed their commitment to oppose the second runway, pointing to the conspicous absence of any kind of credible business case for such a grand expansion. "The days of predict and provide are over", said Lorely. "In an unpredictable world that has seen the impact of 9-11 and oil shoot up from $25 to $60 a barrel in the last five years, governments simply cannot make an accurate assessment of future air travel needs with any certainty."

The real danger, however, is that the Master Plan will find its way into statutory planning policy via the Local Development Framework, and in the process become legally binding on the local authority, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council. Such an outcome, which would severely limit the scope for community representation and participation when, eventually, planning applications for the new runway, terminal and other developments are submitted, must be resisted to the hilt. The Master Plan is a commercial business plan, nothing more; it must not be allowed to dictate the planning policy of a democratically elected local government.

James Botham