Better Transport

13 May: Great news: the new coalition Government has ruled out expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted. But airport expansion remains unsustainable, even at regional airports.

Obviously we're delighted that Heathrow's third runway won't be getting the go ahead. Over the last few years we've highlighted how Heathrow's expansion would have been disastrous for West London, as well as making our climate change targets that bit harder to reach.

We pulled together unions, businesses and civil society groups to argue that Heathrow should be improved, not expanded, and we conducted research into alternatives, including rail upgrades and information technology, to show that a twenty-first century economy wasn't dependent on people in metal boxes zooming through the sky.

But whilst we've won the battle, the war continues. Across the UK, regional airports continue to push for more runways, more terminals and more flights. Giving in to them would be disastrous, especially for fragile regional economies, so badly hit by our ridiculous tourism deficit. Even without expansion in the South East, aviation is 13% of our climate impact.

If I could offer one bit of advice to whomever takes over as the aviation brief, it would be to heed the words of Chris Mullin, former Aviation Minister. "I learnt two things" he said of his time in office. "First, that the demands of the aviation industry are insatiable. Second, those successive governments have usually given way to them. Although nowadays the industry pays lip-service to the notion of sustainability, its demands are essentially unchanged. It wants more of everything... airports, runways, terminals."

26 March: In a historic verdict, the High Court has just torn the case for Heathrow to shreds, and ordered the Government to rewrite its aviation policy to take account of climate change.

It's hard to overestimate how devastatingly comprehensive this verdict is. The judge ruled that the economic case was outdated, ignoring the cost of mitigating climate change and that there were serious issues about how passengers would get to the airport.

Even more importantly, the judge found that the UK's aviation policy had to take account of the 2008 Climate Change Act. This spells the end of massive expansion, because expanding airports is simply incompatible with preventing climate change.

A fantastic result, and testament to the hard work by CPRE, Greenpeace, WWF, RSPB, local councils and residents' campaign groups HACAN and NoTRAG.

In the words of the judge, expanding Heathrow is "untenable in law and common sense". The only credible thing left for the Government to do is accept defeat and cancel the third runway and sixth terminal.
 

19 March: Every year around 67,000 flights in private jets escape paying any tax, despite being emitting up to 30 times more CO2 per passenger than a normal flight. It's time the Government closed this loophole.

Light aircraft are about the most polluting way to travel possible, carrying an average of 2-3 passengers per flight. But business travel on small jets is exempt from Air Passenger Duty, and pays no tax on fuel.

This means that the wealthiest people are paying less tax for their travel than everyone else, which, as you'd expect, is pretty unpopular. A poll for easyJet last year found that 80% of people supported closing this loophole.

Charging fuel duty on these ultra-polluting aircraft wouldn't raise enormous sums of money, but it would make sure that all flights were held accountable for the damage they cause to the environment.

Perhaps more importantly, it would be fairer than the current system, which taxes families going on holiday while the wealthiest escape scot free.

5 March: I read this morning that Shepway Council overruled their planning officers and approved expansion of Lydd Airport. I cant see this being the end of the matter!

It's to understand what motivated Shepway's councillors. Lydd Airport - recently renamed London Ashford, although its miles away from either - is three miles from Dungeness nuclear power station and next-door to the first RSPB sanctuary on Romney Marshes.

Even if you ignore the noise of planes overhead - a key factor in the planning officers' recomendation to oppose expansion - the risk of bird-strike or of a wayward plane hitting a reactor should have dissuaded the airport's most ardent proponents.

However, local people have pointed out that the Council failed to consider either the impact on the power station or on the bird population, which, they argue, is a clear breach of the EU Habitats Directive. They're now calling for a public inquiry to examine all the issues which councillors overlooked in their haste to grant approval.

If I ran the airport, I wouldn't be popping the champagne courts just yet - this story will run and run.

22 January: Southend-on-Sea has just approved expansion at Southend Airport. But the Government knows it can't expand regional airports and Heathrow, as our investigation last year revealed.

Eddie Stobart's freight company – linked to road haulage but now also running trains – is pushing plans to increase passenger numbers from around 50,000 to 2 million by 2019. But a few months ago the Committee on Climate Change ruled that the Air Transport White Paper would breach those targets, and that expansion plans needed to be scaled back substantially. 

We think any expansion is optimistic, because, as we told the Times last year, the Government's plans to expand Heathrow and Stansted means that no other airport can expand without breaching their targets. But the lack of any coherent policy on aviation means smaller airports are rushing their expansion plans through without considering the impact on the climate (or local people).

Luckily the Communities Secretary has asked to see the expansion proposal, which means that there could be a public inquiry. But we still have no idea how the Government plans to meet its targets. Targets are only effective if they are enforced, and airports and councils are simply ignoring the Government's aviation limits.

8 December: Make no mistake. The Committee on Climate Change has shown that the Government's airport expansion plans are totally incompatible with stopping climate change.

The CCC's report is couched in the most tactful language possible. Rather than tell the Government what they didn't want to hear, they've outlined some ways in which a much smaller airport expansion programme could be done without breaching our climate change goals. But doing so would be electoral suicide.

The main solution - forcing other sectors, notably energy, to make bigger cuts - sounds great as a headline. But in practice it means that home heating, gas and electric, will become much more expensive, driving millions of people into fuel poverty. Even then we'd have to chose between expanding Heathrow and regional airports.

The Government has a very clear choice, and just one question to ask itself. Faced with a choice between unaffordable energy and airport expansion, how many people would vote for more flights?

30 October: The airline industry and Daily Telegraph are calling for air passenger duty to be scrapped. Their arguments are unlikely to take off.

This Sunday, plane tickets will get more expensive, thanks to changes in air passenger duty. Not very expensive, mind: the cost of a short-haul economy seat will rise by one pound. A long-haul 'premium' ticket, like business or first class, will increase by £30, from £80 to £110. It's hardly going to break the bank.

Earlier this month we revealed how the aviation industry is a massive tax dodger avoiding £10 billion in tax by being exempt from VAT and fuel duty. Paying £2 billion in APD is the least it could do, given that aviation is 13% of our climate impact.

Sure, there are some flaws in the way APD works, but the Telegraph's 10 reasons to scrap the tax are pretty flimsy. Sure, tt's crazy that freight and private jets are exempt, and I'm not sure that the Carribean and Egypt are in the right bands. But scrapping the whole system because of a few quirks? That's more than throwing the baby out with the bathwater: it's demolishing the whole bathroom as well.

9 September: The Committee on Climate Change wants to reduce overall emissions by 90% so we don't have to cut the amount we fly. With alternatives available, why should we give aviation a free ride?

Aviation emissions are predicted to grow massively over the next few years, despite a new Government target to reduce CO2 for aircraft to 2005 levels by 2050. Now the Committee on Climate Change has worked out that even if we met this, the rest of the economy would need to cut its emissions by 90%.

I’m not sure why flying keeps getting off so lightly: reducing our emissions by 80% is going to be hard enough, without making everyone else clear up after the aviation industry. Insulating our homes and reducing how much we drive is important, and people aren’t going to be happy if their efforts are being undermined by people who won't stop taking short haul flights.

Tackling climate change must be done equitably, which means that every sector has to play its part, and no one getting a license to pollute. We could start by taxing the fuel on domestic flights and making rail travel cheaper so that the greener choice is the easy choice.

7 July: Expanding Bristol International Airport (BIA) would mean more traffic, more noise and more CO2. Local campaigners are fighting hard to stop this development, but they need your help.

BIA has applied for planning permission to expand, so now is the time to fight this. Stop BIA needs you to write to North Somerset Council to explain why expanding the airport would be bad for the economy and the environment.

3 June: We’ve just responded to the Government’s consultation on airport regulation. We’ve argued that:

• Reducing the impact of air travel on local communities and the environment must be a priority
• The Government should stop expanding airports – instead, it should cut train fares and tax aviation so that people take the train instead of flying
• Passenger Focus should not represent air passengers, because this could make it harder for them to represent bus and train passengers, and to encourage people to switch to public transport

This response isn’t the only way we’re campaigning for trains not planes. At the moment when planes and trains fight for your business it’s not a fair fight. Find out why, and how you can help bring train fares down.

May 4: The case for expanding Heathrow took a further pounding this week when a coalition of chief executives came out against the third runway at Heathrow. I wasn’t that surprised really: businesses have been telling me for a while that they want Heathrow improved, not expanded.

That’s why we sat down last year with unions, businesses, councils and NGOs to pen an open letter to Geoff Hoon, asking him not to expand the airport. We pointed out that expanding Heathrow would make a mockery of the Government’s climate change targets, and that the money would be better spent improving our transport network so that people had better, cheaper alternatives to domestic flights.

As the credit crunch continues to bite, passengers numbers at airports across the UK have been declining sharply, further undermining the few remaining arguments in favour of expansion. Hoon would be well advised to listen to reason – and business – and call a halt to this costly and unnecessary folly before it’s too late.