Originally Posted by
Asturias56
MV - thank you for a considered response
I can imagine that polls over a large area by local media (who rarely adopt very scientific methods) show a lot of people want expansion - but they're all a long way away
the people who hate the idea are largely local and concentrated in seats held be local Councillors.
If we had a National transport Plan it might be easier but its not something the UK seems to want
They aren't scientific polls by any judgement which is why I call them 'straw polls'. BRS had its own poll earlier this year conducted by (I think) YouGov which perhaps unsurprisingly found a significant majority in favour of the expansion. Critics said the sample was low and unrepresentative. There can be a valid argument for considering the views of those who live in the wider West Country as the airport is a major facility for the entire region. There are some who believe that one local authority in whose area the airport happens to sit should not be the sole arbiter as to its future. We are back again to the idea of a planning inspector-led enquiry being the best vehicle to determine the planning applications.
Much of the opposition seems to emanate from residents in local villages although objectors are not confined to those areas by any means. I don't live in the North Somerset local authority area but I do live closer to the airport and to the flight path than many people who actually live in that unitary authority. On mornings when the easterly runway (09) is active the 30 airline departures between 0600 and 0800 nearly all overfly the vicinity of our house or the nearby area as they turn to the left or to the right. When I'm wake I hear them but they don't usually wake me up and I'm a light and generally poor sleeper. Inbounds to 27 I can see through my windows but rarely hear. Yet some residents of Bath which is ten miles or more further than my house from the airport complain bitterly about aircraft noise. I think it's down to individual perception. To some people any aircraft noise is intolerable; to others it's part of the background hubbub of everyday life.
There is an organisation that calls itself StopBristolAirportExpansion (SBAE) and they cite the usual objections: noise; road traffic congestion; anti-social parking; greenhouse gas emissions. Yet even they send out mixed messages at times. They believe that Cardiff Airport should expand rather than Bristol. Extra flights whether from Bristol or Cardiff would still cause the additional emissions to which they object. In reality some of this group don't want more flights in their back garden but aren't bothered about other airports. That's fair enough but I wish they would be honest about it rather than wave the climate change flag when they are only really concerned about emissions at BRS and not elsewhere.
No national transport plan, but in 2003 the then Labour government produced a White Paper
The Future of Air Transport which took a relatively in-depth look at the the existing scene as it was then with projections and support (or lack of) re all the UK airports then in existence for the decades ahead. The DfT supported BRS expansion up to 12 mppa (the figure to which the airport is currently seeking to be allowed to reach) with a runway extension and a second terminal. The airport has since eschewed both and believes it can reach 12 mppa with the existing runway and one terminal which would nevertheless have to be expanded yet again.
Originally Posted by
derelicte
I seem to recall the people of Bristol were much less in favour of airport expansion when the far more suitable site at Filton was proposed as an airport.
I wouldn't say that Bristol residents in general were against the idea of Filton becoming an airport. Most of Bristol is unaffected by airport noise whether from Filton when it was operational or from BRS. Many of those living in the built up-areas next to Filton certainly weren't enthusiastic about BAE's mid-1990s application to turn Filton into a city airport, and when in 2006/2007 the BRS runway was closed each night during winter for resurfacing (a story in itself!) the two nightly Royal Mail aircraft that were left at BRS were switched to Filton for that winter. Judged by the complaints from Filton area residents in the local press one might have been forgiven for believing Filton had suddenly become a major night-time airport.
When BRS is in the news in the local press people still post comments saying that the city's airport should have been at Filton. BAE's mid-1990s proposal would have taken much of the short-haul business traffic from BRS or, at least, that's what the BRS management must have felt because the airport was one of the objectors to BAE's application. A planning inspector was appointed to hold an enquiry which resulted in the BAE application being refused.
On the face of it Filton would have been a much better prospect for Bristol's airport (and not just a city airport) than Lulsgate: a larger site; longer runway; better weather; near a major motorway intersection (M4/M5); a main line railway nearby and a branch line running through the airfield site. There might have been problems accomodating a growing airport within a busy works airfield, and the area around Filton is far more built up than the villages around Lulsgate and would no doubt have led to even more objections than those that always surface when BRS is in expansion mode.