Airports

The Branch is very concerned about airport
developments in the county ...

We won the battle of Rugby Airport but now we fight developments at both existing Coventry and Birmingham Airports ...

Coventry Airport.

The Inquiry into a an application for a large Permanent Terminal, a car park and runway apron extensions which began on 10th January 2006 has been completed and the application has been rejected.

The appeal to the High Court against this decision was rejected in October 2008. However, the Inquiry into the Temporary Terminal Enforcement Action has been completed and the Deputy Prime Minister has granted the appeal. This means that the temporary terminal may continue in use but a new permanent terminal cannot be built.

Subsequently Thomsonfly has announced that it is withdrawing passenger flights from the airport in November. This raises concerns that freight flights at night might increase. There appears to be no control over these freight flights.

HISTORY

The situation at Coventry Airport unrolled painfully slowly. Scheduled flights started on 31st March 2004. On the same day Warwick District Council agreed to take enforcement action about the temporary terminal. The council stated that the temporary terminal must be taken out of use in 7 days and demolished in 28 days. The fight over the temporary terminal went to the High Court in May 2004 and the Judge rejected the application of the Warwick District Council for an injunction to stop the use of the temporary terminal.
This fight then went to a Planning Inquiry, which opened on 1st February 2005 and closed on 19th July 2005. During the course of the Inquiry Warwick District Council changed its position to the extent that on the day before the Inquiry closed it gave permission for a car park with 2060 spaces to serve the temporary terminal, having also agreed a mitigation package if the temporary terminal were allowed to stay.
However, the previous year, on 11th September 2004, Warwick District Council had refused to grant permission for a new permanent passenger terminal.
So far so good. The company appealed against that decision and it was assumed that the application would go before a Public Inquiry in 2005/2006.

In October 2004 the Airport Company made another application for a passenger terminal three times bigger than the one just refused. They then appealed against Warwick District Council’s inability to process the application (due to being tied up with the long Inquiry in 2005). They also asked for this Inquiry to be joined up with the earlier one and a date was set for early 2006. Then they withdrew their appeal against refusal of the first passenger terminal application in favour of the second, bigger, one. This will now be the subject of the Inquiry, which starts on 10 January 2006.
At this new Inquiry the District Council will not be opposing the Airport Company’s plans as Warwick District Council’s Planning Committee has decided that if they had been given the opportunity to decide they would have given it permission in any case. The District Council has also agreed that the mitigation package offered by the Airport Company would be sufficient.

This is not the position that CPRE Warwickshire Branch will be taking at the Inquiry. The Branch will be opposing the Airport Company’s plans to establish and expand passenger flights at Coventry Airport and will be looking for a considerably better mitigation package than has been offered so far if permission is to be granted.

A member of CPRE Warwickshire has been invited to join the Coventry Airport Consultative Committee as a representative of the environment sector.

Click for the Campaign Against Expansion of Coventry Airport

Birmingham Airport

Birmingham Airport has launched its draft Master Plan.
For more information Click Here

A consultation on the proposed expansion of Birmingham Airport, to cater for a trebling of its current passenger throughput, started on 31st October 2005 and closes on 31st March 2006. The Branch is currently studying the implications for the area around the Airport into which it proposes to extend its activities. The proposals include an extension of the existing runway across the A45 and a new runway to be constructed in open countryside close to Catherine-de-Barnes and to Elmdon Park. All of this will require demolition of houses and profound impacts on the countryside within the Meriden Gap Green Belt.

We recommend as essential reading the ‘Midlands Aviation Master Plan’ http://www.cprewm.org.uk/aviation.html. This report was published in October 2005 and has been written by environmental campaigners in the East and West Midlands (including CPRE) and takes a comprehensive look at the future of aviation in the two regions.

26.10.08