(The recent) meeting of the North Somerset Council’s Executive was interrupted to receive the news that the Bristol Airport appeal against the council’s refusal to allow its expansion had been successful.

That was a crushing blow for the hundreds of local people who had campaigned so vigorously to prevent a 20 per cent increase in flights over the North Somerset area – which also adversely affect residents in the Bath and South Gloucester areas.

The airport is owned by a Canadian teachers’ trade union and that, presumably, is where its profits go.

In 2000, officers in the council’s planning department recommended that the airport’s expansion plan be passed. But when the application was ‘called in’ for the decision to be made by councilor’s - and based on our pledge to cut carbon emission and other harmful gases to zero by 2030 - the vast majority of us voted to turn the application down.

I was pleased to second that proposal and speak against the airport’s expansion.

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I argued that the application and our duties to the communities we represent were mutually exclusive events. We either pass the application or we should do our very best to halt the causes of global warming within our capabilities. To my mind, the choice was a no-brainer.

Only 15 per cent of passengers flying out of Bristol are on business. The majority of the other 85 per cent are heading off to holiday abroad.

If passenger numbers were limited, even those – many of them frequent fliers – would be forced to spend less time in the air.

Climate change has been caught up by an even greater problem: Time Emergency.

Every metre rise in the oceans will render more and more inhabitants of low-lying island nations homeless.

Over recent years we’ve had a trickle of people trying to get across the Channel for a better life in the UK.

Well, how do any of us view the prospect of millions looking for a new home on dry land?

I, for one, wouldn’t dream of refusing them – but imagine the additional stress that would put on our economy, the NHS, housing, etc.

If airports aren’t checked, within a few years flying will produce 25 per cent of greenhouse emissions. How will that help us achieve a temperature increase below two degrees? There will be no second chance to get it right.

The airport says that they will do all they can to reduce their own emissions to zero within 20 years. Big deal!

Have they never heard of putting the horse before the cart? Surely they should be waiting for new plane designs to come off the drawing boards and new fuels to be developed.

If these developments are successful then perhaps those who want to fly will be able to do so with a clear conscience.

JOHN LEY-MORGAN
Independent Uphill Ward Cllr, NSC