A report has debunked some government myths on aviation.
The Sustainable Development Commission, itself a government quango, says many of the assumptions on which ministers base their airport expansion plans, are shaky, at best.
The commission’s report calls for a new look at aviation policy especially at claims that more runways and more flights will boost the UK economy to the tune of £5 billion. Noise and air pollution have been given too little consideration, the SDC says.
The report also highlights the role of aviation in hastening climate change. Flights account for three per cent of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions and seven per cent of the UK’s.
Emissions from aircraft cause more damage than gases leached on the ground however. And the explosion of air travel, likely in the next few decades, means that flights will account for about 25 per cent of UK emissions alone. We may as well turn the lights off now.
Heathrow and Stansted are not the only airports demanding the right to do more environmental damage. Luton’s application was beaten down some time ago but the protest posters remain, just in case.
And tiny Lydd, whose planning application comes under the grandiose title London Ashford International, wants its share of the spoils too. Hop on at Lydd and you’re at Le Touquet in a jiffy, a regular training venue for our brave England soccer stars. Er, no thanks.
But now we’re getting silly. No, no, not at the thought of watching England but at the thought of enlarging Lydd. This airport is next to one of Europe’s most unusual nature reserves, Dungeness, which is part of the Dungeness peninsular, a wild, eerie and unique expanse of shingle where birds, bees and bugs thrive, together with all manner of rare and fragile plants.
Some of these plants are so sensitive that they would simply keel over if any more emissions came wafting from Lydd. And then there’s all the delays when 120,000 birds get sucked into aircraft engines. And the fact that it takes ages to get to Lydd from, well, anywhere really. There can be few other airports so firmly stuck in the sticks.
The RSPB is amongst many calling for common sense when we think about bigger airports. Those making decisions reject that suggestion, with BAA doing so again today, telling the Guardian that more discussion is daft because the government will have its new runways anyway.
Sacrifices will be needed if we are to cut our emissions but some things and some places just don’t have price.
One of those places is Dungeness. One airport plan that is just plain silly, is that for tiny Lydd.
Click here for the SDC's report