Political Briefing - issues from the 2005 General Election and beyond

Tuesday, 02, Dec 2008 02:25

Why election candidates need to know about aviation growth

One way or another a significant number of your potential voters are affected by aviation – either as passengers, employees or as residents subjected to aircraft noise and related pollution.

With the number of aircraft passengers expected to triple to 600 million a year by around 2030, there is an urgent need to address aviation growth in the UK.

Tough decisions about how to reconcile the competing concerns of local communities, passengers, airlines and airport operators need to be taken. The environmental, social and economic balancing act needs to be achieved.

SASIG produced a briefing note for Parliamentary candidates in the 2005 general election, setting out the challenges to be faced by a new Government. These issues are as important now as they were then.

SASIG is a group of local authorities that work together on major aviation issues. Our local authority membership is from all the main political parties and we thus feel we can offer a broad but non-party view to help all candidates.

WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AVIATION GROWTH

With the number of aircraft passengers expected to triple to 600 million a year by around 2030, there is an urgent need to address aviation growth in the UK.

This brief document will help you understand the key issues around aviation growth and introduce you to the work of SASIG.

This short briefing note has been prepared to give Parliamentary candidates an indication of the size and complexity of the aviation issues they may be expected to know about. The challenges to be faced by a new Government are set out in bold text.

SASIG works with Government and the aviation industry to consider the impacts of the forecast growth from 190 million passengers in 2002 to between 400 and 600 million passengers a year by 2030. To be acceptable this growth must be secured in a sustainable way. The UK’s airports vary in size so dramatically that national policies also need local interpretation.

The growth in airports promoted in the White Paper may only accommodate the low end of these forecasts. Traditionally growth has been at the high-end of the forecasts. In addition, market developments such as the rise in no-frills carriers, are affecting rates of growth. A new Government will need SASIG's help in deciding whether to accommodate the shortfall or not meet the demand.

SASIG highlights the need to address the detrimental local and global environmental effects of aviation so as to ensure the industry achieves sustainability in its development.

A new Government and the aviation industry face a major challenge in managing the impacts that growth in air travel presents. The need to address global climate change is now of the utmost urgency. SASIG suggests to Parliamentary candidates that passengers need to be better informed of the local and global impacts of their air travel.

SASIG takes on the challenge of implementing the strategy laid out in the Aviation White Paper of December 2003. SASIG is working with the Government and the industry to produce and implement policies that ensure the right amount of growth in the right places.

The Government is committed to producing a monitoring report on the Aviation White Paper by the end of 2006. The new Government will need to tackle the difficulties of expanding some of the existing airports, particularly in the South East, which may entail a complete review of the White Paper.

SASIG demands that the convenience of passengers does not outweigh the quality of life of local people who are overflown every day and suffer from noise, poor air quality and road congestion.

The new Government will need to address the issue of whether some airports are too close to long established urban areas, such that the airport should not grow and/or land uses around airports should be changed to those which are not sensitive to noise and air pollution.

SASIG supports the controlled expansion of airports in all regions of the UK outside the South East, so that local residents and businesses are well served from a local airport for business and leisure purposes.

The challenge to a new Government will be to ensure that air services are provided in such a way that travellers minimise the number of occasions on which they fly from an airport outside their local region, whilst protecting those living near airports from adverse environmental effects.

SASIG recognises the importance of aviation to the economy of Britain.

The new Government will need to give priority to initiatives that remove barriers to the appropriate growth of regional airports, including the provision of improved public transport and road infrastructure. The shortage of runway space in the South East, that could best have been overcome by the provision of a new airport, will continue to inhibit services from regional airports to London. Sites for a new airport, with minimal environmental impact and good access, can be found.

SASIG believes that the White Paper lacked vision for the future of aviation in the South East. New runways at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted cannot be judged to be sustainable and conflict with the Government’s other regional planning policies.

The new Government is likely to be faced with Regional Spatial Strategies that do not accommodate new runways at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted on the basis that the impact of the associated urban and transport development would place unacceptable burdens on the localities. This is another issue which the new Government will need to take into account in any monitoring and review of the White Paper.

SASIG expects the aviation industry to comply with demanding targets so as to take responsibility for the impacts of their activities – noise and air pollution, urbanisation, surface access transport.

Public pressure will be exerted on a new Government to impose targets that have to be met and to resist demands from the aviation industry to reduce the severity of such controls. Traditionally, the aviation industry has failed to deliver competent compliance with the targets and standards that have been set.

SASIG promotes the phasing out of most night flights except from airports where few people are disturbed.

The new Government will be left in no doubt that people living around airports demand the minimum interference in their sleep between 11pm and 7am. The new Government will find that residents who are regularly disturbed strongly object to airlines advertising night flights that offer a restful sleep for passengers while disturbing the sleep of people living under the flightpaths.