Obstacles pile up for Birmingham Airport runway extension
The Government must prepare a national policy statement, required to establish the case for major infrastructure projects, before the expansion can go ahead.
The preparation of the statement “will necessarily involve a review of all the relevant policy issues including the impact of climate change policy”, the judge noted.
Birmingham Friends of the Earth says its opposition to the BIA runway extension has been given added strength by Lord Justice Carnwarth’s decision.
Spokesman Joe Peacock said: “We have long argued that massively underestimating of the cost to society of emitting carbon has a huge impact on the economic case for the runway extension and this has now been confirmed on a national level.”
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Council quick to bypass talk of A45 financing headache
Normally, moves to press ahead with a £32 million realignment of the A45 as it skirts Birmingham Airport would have prompted a self-congratulatory city council press release, writes Paul Dale.
But a cabinet discussion of plans to share the cost of diverting the road with Solihull Council was rather neatly slipped under the radar. Debate, if there was any, took place in a private session where members decided to defer a decision in order to take advice about possible “legal implications”.
In the public part of the cabinet meeting, council leader Mike Whitby made it clear he did not want any discussion and moved swiftly to next business.
The reason for such edginess is clear, for it is not absolutely certain that the council can use its general well-being powers to provide a road that, arguably, will largely benefit Birmingham Airport, a private company.
The A45 diversion is essential in order to create space for the airport’s £120 million runway extension to be built. It was thought that Advantage West Midlands would pay for the road, but the regional development agency’s own financial difficulties appear to have put paid to that idea – and until the road construction can be resolved, the runway extension cannot be built.
The council believes the greater benefit to the people of Birmingham that is expected to flow from an improved dual-carriageway A45 and faster links to the airport and NEC, triggering economic gain for local businesses justify its proposal to hand over £16 million to Solihull Council.
Environmentalists are accusing the city council of being out of touch with public opinion. Joe Peacock, a spokesman for Birmingham Friends of the Earth, said: “It would be madness for the council to be using taxpayers’ money to subsidise the airport’s expansion plans.
“As well as being incredibly damaging environmentally, expanding aviation does not make economic sense and the airport should not be coming cap-in-hand to the council to help out. In such difficult economic times money should be invested in supporting local low-carbon business infrastructure that will benefit local people and in turn deliver a Green New Deal for the West Midlands.”
Mark Pearce, corporate director for economic regeneration at AWM, said the runway extension was the region’s top transport priority after the Birmingham New Street Station redevelopment and had the potential to boost the regional economy and exploit global markets as the UK emerges from the recession.
He added: “AWM is 100 per cent committed to working with the airport, Birmingham and Solihull councils and Whitehall to ensure that the project to help extend the runway and upgrade the A45 goes ahead.”
