In an extraordinary move Philip Meeson, Chief Executive of Jet2.com, has voiced his opposition to the expansion of Leeds Bradford Airport.

Talking to the Telegraph & Argus, Meeson stated;

“The reason LBIA wants to extend the terminal is to create better shopping facilities as a cash generator.

All airports are seeing a reduction in passenger numbers and I would question whether we need this extension now.

The ring road is already crowded and there are not enough bus services to and from the airport. We need to have many more buses from all over the place and car parking charges should be kept down.”

While it’s clear his motives are more financial than altruistic, it’s a delicious turn of events that the Chief Executive of LBA’s largest airline is against their crusade to expand capacity.

You can read the full story at the Telegraph & Argus website.

After an epic 4+1/2 hour Plans Panel West meeting, the Council committee all but APPROVED the £28m airport expansion. The vote itself passed on a knife edge - out of the 8 Councillors present for the decision, 1 abstained, 3 voted against, and 4 voted for. The Panel voted to defer the decision until a number of conditions were met, but once these conditions have been satisfied the Planning Department may approve the expansion, a process that will take a matter of weeks.

Obviously this is a hugely disappointing result for the campaign, for local residents, and for anyone concerned about the devastating impacts of climate change. We know our concerns are justified - the Council admitted that under the proposals several key junctions close to the airport would be over capacity on Fridays, and projections from Friends of the Earth show clearly that the airport’s expansion plans would mean the airport would consume all of Leeds’ carbon budget by 2050. Sadly cold hard fact wasn’t quite enough to counter the enormous pressure laid on by Council officers and Leeds Bradford Airport.

Right now the future of the campaign is being reviewed. There are several possible avenues to explore that may stop, delay, or reduce the expansion. Should these not prove fruitful, we may put the campaign on hold for now and dedicate our time to the many other urgent climate causes. We’ll be discussing where to go next at an open meeting on Tuesday 4th August, 3PM-5PM please feel free to come along, here more about what’s happened, and explore options for moving forward. Email info@leedstidal.org for more info, inc. venue once it’s confirmed.

But though this expansion has been approved, already we’ve achieved much in this campaign - and it may not even be over yet!

• We have demonstrated the strength of public opposition to airport expansion
• Out of an unprecedented 2200 letters of representation to the Council, about 80% were against expansion.
• We have stopped unconstrained growth at LBA
• When the proposal was first considered by the Plans Panel, there was a very real danger that the proposal would allow growth of up to 7m passengers per annum (mppa) at the airport, up from 3mppa! Now further permission must be sought if the airport wishes to go above 4.5mppa.
• We have engaged Councillors with the issue
• From the arguments they were using and the questions they were asking we unequivocally got our point across.
• To have such a tight vote in the face of overwhelming odds is an achievement in itself!
• We have delayed the expansion
• Every tonne of carbon that goes into the atmosphere warms the planet that little more and costs lives.
• Our actions have likely delayed this scheme by a year - that’s a full year less of increased carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
• Meanwhile, out in the real world, air traffic at the airport is crumbling, probably down to around 2.5mppa this year and next; so that means that for the moment the CO2 emissions will be falling as well!
• It’s very unlikely that the expansion ambitions of the new private owner Bridgepoint will ever be achieved, and the returns on their £150m investment will have slumped. Now they’ve got to shell out £28m on a new terminal with millions fewer passengers expected.
• We have built a strong, nimble, powerful coalition
• This is not the first time we’ll have to respond to an issue like this.
  We’ve built a powerful coalition that has a model for future work.

An enormous thank you to all who have helped this campaign so far - from sending emails & letters to the Council, cajoling passers-by to sign even more letters, organising campaign events, to writing official campaign responses and greeting Councillors as they entered the meetings - all of this has demonstrably made a difference. If you want to have a say in what we do next, please come along to the Tues 4th August meeting - email info@leedstidal.org for more info - otherwise we’ll keep you posted on what’s next.

Best wishes,
No Leeds Bradford Airport Expansion