Local residents and local campaign group, Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN), were extremely disappointed to learn that Bristol Airport has decided to ignore local opinion, including that of locally elected councils, and implement the planning permission they obtained after their more than four year fight.

Stephen Clarke from BAAN says: “The airport’s press release (to view, visit: https://shorturl.at/xLNWZ with key points of their project to the right) talks about the supposed ‘transformational’ benefits of their plans; in fact the key people who will benefit will be the owners, Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, who stand to make even more money from car parking, whilst contributing to the destruction of our climate system. The purported benefits will mean an extra million tonnes of carbon a year (more than double all the ground transport emissions of the whole of Bristol), a multi-storey car park on greenbelt land and nearly as many night flights at Heathrow. Local residents fear further traffic congestion on the A38 and local roads as well as increased levels of air and noise pollution. In short, the lives of local residents and the environment will be transformed, but definitely not for the better ”

“Expert evidence at the planning inquiry showed clearly that the promise of jobs is ‘much exaggerated’ as airports become increasingly automated and business people no longer use flights (when they can meet online). Yet again the airport misleads people by promising ‘net zero operations by 2030’; but they neglect to mention it doesn’t include the planes!”

Latest employment figures for 2022 released by the Airport show that they only directly employed around 350 people and that in total they employed fewer people in 2022 than in 2016.

Stephen Clarke continued, “We feel the operators of the airport cannot be trusted and BAAN, with the support of an award from Grounding Technologies, are developing a website to ensure that Bristol Airport sticks to their planning obligations (including the number of night flights).

“The tool will be freely available to interested individuals and community groups later in the autumn and people are invited to pre-register their interest by emailing: [email protected].

“When Bristol Airport put forward the plans for expansion in December 2018 we were in a climate crisis. Now the emergency is immeasurably worse and impossible to deny. 
“Bristol Airport is big enough!”