Putting The Brakes On Leeds Bradford Airport Expansion!

In this article, Chayley Collis of Huddersfield Friends of the Earth makes the case for a ministerial re-examination of the proposed expansion of Leeds Bradford Airport.

Leeds City Council has recently given Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) the go-ahead for its expansion plans, which would increase passenger numbers from 4 million per year to over 7 million by 2030 and result in significantly increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Friends of the Earth groups across West Yorkshire are joining the Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport (GALBA) in calling on Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, to 'call in' and re-examine the decision to approve the expansion of the Leeds Bradford Airport. If he agrees, the airport’s planning application will be dealt with at a public inquiry.

There are so many reasons why the decision should be ‘called in’ and re-examined.

Climate impact

The serious climate change impact of the LBA proposal is totally out of line with the Government’s independent advisors Climate Change Committee (CCC)’s guidance on how to reach net zero. In December 2020, the CCC said that there should be no growth in UK airport capacity until at least 2035 and that, by then, aviation emissions must have reduced by around 50% from where there were in 2019. Instead, the LBA decision commits the UK to greenhouse gas emissions that would contribute to a surge in emissions in the early 2030s.

Issue of national importance

The LBA development clearly has significant effects beyond its immediate location. Granting permission would make the Government’s 2050 target much more difficult and costly to achieve and would require reductions in airport capacity elsewhere in the UK. The proposal causes significant effects beyond just LBA and the city of Leeds. It raises the type of issues where consideration at national level, by the Secretary of State, is required.

Economic impact

The project was seemingly passed on the grounds of the local economy, despite the fact that an independent review of the impact of airport expansion concluded that it would have a negative effect on the region’s economy.

‘Biggest threat to security’

After the shockwaves of COVID crisis it's really important that we have economic regeneration and jobs in the region but that should not be bought at any cost. Climate breakdown will have a far more devastating long-term impact on our local economy than the COVID crisis.

As David Attenborough recently told the UN Security Council: “If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security: food production, access to fresh water, habitable ambient temperature and ocean food chains. And if the natural world can no longer support the most basic of our needs, then much of the rest of civilization will quickly break down... Please, make no mistake. Climate change is the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced.”

Green jobs and the green recovery

Allowing the airport to expand is old school economics and ‘business as usual’. Instead, this is our opportunity to do things different to truly ‘build back better’. We need a green and just economic recovery and a just transition for workers in carbon-intensive industries into jobs in the low carbon economy, such as low energy heating and retrofit, health and social care, public transport and renewable energy. It is time to kickstart the low carbon economy!

National government needs to take responsibility where local government has failed and call in this decision.

Please write to Robert Jenrick here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/secretary-of-state-call-in-the-leeds-bradford-airport-expansion-plans