EXCLUSIVE: Campaigners against Bristol Airport expansion preparing national campaign to change law
Stephen Clarke from the Bristol Airport Action Network says they're not stopping, as work to expand Bristol Airport begins
Having failed to prevent the expansion of Bristol Airport, climate activists are preparing to announce a national campaign to change planning law, heat radio can reveal.
Earlier today (26 September) Bristol Airport revealed work has begun to build a new multi-storey car park and public transport interchange on site, as part of wider plans to increase the annual passenger cap from 10 million, to 12 million.
The idea sparked heated opposition from climate activists who still argue expansion is incompatible with the environmental issues facing society, but after a legal saga lasting several years the plans were eventually approved by the High Court in January.
In his decision Lord Justice Lane admitted expanding the airport will impact the climate, but said whether that impact is significant enough to see the plans rejected is a decision for central government and not local planning bodies.
A planning inspectorate appointed by the government had already approved the plans prior to the case reaching the High Court.
Stephen Clarke from the Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN) said: "We've started, in conjunction with 20 other groups around the UK, a national campaign just about to launch called No Airport Expansion.
"The purpose of that campaign is to get the planning law changed...to make the planning laws take into account the environmental impacts.
"At Bristol, the planning inspectorates told us we weren't allowed to consider the environmental impact locally, it had to be done by central government, but central government didn't do it, so it meant no one considered those.
"So we've got a million tonnes of carbon a year coming into the atmosphere and literally no one was considering it as part of the planning application."
Just three weeks ago The Telegraph reported that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is planning to ignore advice from his own Climate Change Committee, that airport expansions must be stopped.
Members of the government believe airport growth has a major role to play in expanding the economy and Bristol Airport's bosses have been vocal in saying their expansion is good news in that regard.
"What they (the planning inspectorate) did was, they took the comparator of the whole of the aviation (carbon) budget for UK and they said that Bristol Airport's expansion, compared with that whole budget, would not stop the government hitting net zero by 2050," Stephen said.
"But what they didn't do was they didn't take it into consideration in the planning balance...that had to be done by central government, Michael Gove as it was then.
"Michael Gove then refused to become involved...so the net effect was the carbon emissions were not taken into account locally and they were not taken into account nationally."
Though the campaign has not yet formally been announced, activists like Stephen have already begun lobbying politicians, both inside and outside government, to see the law changed.
"We're explaining it to them and when, I spoke to some MP's recently at an All Party Parliamentary Group in parliament, and when I actually explain these problems to them, they're actually quite shocked.
"I very much got the impression that they want to change those aspects of the law, because it's very unfair."
In their statement released this morning to announce the expansion a spokesperson for Bristol Airport said: "The development of Bristol Airport to being a 12 million passenger per annum airport will create thousands of new jobs in the years ahead, open-up new direct air links, and support inbound tourism.
"This project is the first of many to enhance the customer experience at Bristol Airport whilst meeting the challenge of developing in a responsible way and the commitment in being a net zero airport operation by 2030*."
Meanwhile a spokesperson for the Department for Transport said: "Airport growth, and the aviation sector as a whole, has a key role to play in boosting our global connectivity and helping grow the economy.
"We remain supportive of airport expansion where it can be delivered in a sustainable way.”
Plans are also in the pipeline to expand other airports in the UK including London Heathrow, London Gatwick, London Luton, Stanstead, Leeds Bradford Airport and Southampton Airport.
*Bristol Airport's pledge to achieve "net zero carbon operations" by 2030, does not take into account carbon emissions from flights.