Lulsgate or Filton?
The Bristol Evening Post ceased to have any ‘feel’ for its community when ownership moved from local control to the Northcliffe Newspaper Group some years ago.
It seems to rely a lot on press hand-outs from organisations with a local connection, but then I imagine so do many regional newspapers.
The re-hash of the Filton story seems to have a occurred on a slow news day when a local planning consultant, a marvellous title for people of varying skills and knowledge, told the newspaper that the Regional Spatial Strategy (something drummed up by two unelected ‘quangos’, the South West Regional Development Agency and the South West Regional Assembly) opens the door for a second airport for Bristol at Filton. The government though still seems distinctly unimpressed.
Incidentally, the good old BEP/'BNP' keep perpetuating the myth that FZO has one of the longest runways in the country and it was rolled out again in the current hack’s piece. At 91 metres (299 feet) it might be one of the widest but its 2,460-odd metres certainly don't make it one of the longest, but significantly longer than BRS for all that.
Bae tried to turn Filton into a city airport in the 1990s but the idea was kicked out of court by the relevant government minister of the day, one Selwyn Gummer no less, after a public enquiry.
Always assuming the airport operator (Bristol City Council for much of the second half of the last century) could have established a working accommodation with the owner, then even without the benefit of hindsight it is as obvious as anything can be that Filton should have been chosen over Lulsgate when Whitchurch was deemed too small for requirements in the 1950s.
Foresight was never the hallmark of Bristol City councillors of the 20th Century, or of the 21st for that matter.
There is surely no requirement for Bristol to have two airports. It’s just a pity the one that it has got is in the wrong place when a much better and bigger site was always sitting there across the city.
It’s now too late to seriously think of Filton – part of the site is being sold for non-aviation development and there are now many thousands of residents living in the immediate vicinity.