No plans whatsoever and it's extremely unlikely that any new road of such magnitude would escape the vice-like grip of the well-heeled and well-connected who come out of the cardboard in vociferous numbers, if not in actual ones, whenever their perceived idyllic, chocolate box cover surroundings are threatened. They were in overdrive as a loosely connected group of disparate objectors when the major expansion plans for the airport first saw the light of day and managed to delay the proceedings for several years, albeit they did lose that one in the end.
It's physically possible to extend the runway over the A 38 to the east but that would entail taking full possession of a common for the extension to be worthwhile and the airport, understandably, has decided that's one battle it wouldn't win.
The only slight bit of sunlight on the horizon, and it's not much, is that funding and planning approval are in place for a link road to be built between the A 370 and the A 38 on the south-western outskirts of Bristol itself which will at least remove the tedious drive around the one way streets in south Bristol for those approaching the airport from the M 5 at Avonmouth via the A 4 Portway. The road ought to be built within the next couple of years unless Bristol's notorious predilection for zapping major projects at the last moment comes into play yet again.
The airport is only 3-4 miles from the main Bristol-Exeter railway line but apart from the questionable economics of operating a spur to the airport the 600 foot-plus elevation of BRS means that extensive civil engineering would be required to reach it.................and of course the rural guardians wouldn't like a railway line any more than a road or an expanded airport.
For a city region that is so well connected on the surface - at the crossroads of two major motorways from Midlands-North/South West and London-South Wales and at the centre of major rail lines running in all the important directions - it's supremely perverse that the last few miles to the region's airport is such a challenge.
I often thought that the usually excellent BRS management missed a trick when they had the Continental service to Newark. They could have told the American travellers that they would be landing at a miniature airport smack bang in the middle of Little Old England's fields and hedges with cows looking over the gate at them.
The fact that this lilliputian airport with all its physical difficulties including murk and mist, not to mention strong winds, has performed so well in attracting passengers leads to the obvious question of how busy it would be if it was larger with a longer runway and better connected on the surface.
There was a place that ticked most of these boxes, all of them really, but the F-word has ceased to be mentioned as it no longer has a runway.
BRS is tied to a maximum of 10 mppa through the planning consents mentioned in my first paragraph. It's certain if that is reached at some point, and the airport management tries to increase the numbers, the protestors will be out of their chocolate boxes quicker than you can say J S Fry.