Airport plan is plane crazy

It's all beginning to feel a bit familiar. Yesterday I woke up with another cold to hear reports that the Government is set to include the option of a new airport in the Thames Estuary as part of a consultation on the future of aviation in the UK.

Although deeply depressing, this isn't really a surprise. The Chancellor's Autumn economic statement said that the Government intended to look into all the options for airport expansion, ruling out nothing other than a third runway at Heathrow.

This, remember, was the Autumn statement in which the Chancellor pledged to, "make sure that gold plating of EU rules on things like Habitats aren’t placing ridiculous costs on British businesses".   I didn't like this comment at the time. It was an ill-conceived and wholly inaccurate piece of empty rhetoric.

In view of the airport plans, I like this comment even less.

But haven't we been here somewhere before? At around this time last year, the Government launched its consultation into the proposed sell-off of England's public forests. The resulting public outcry resulted in an embarrassing u-turn. The public forests remain in state ownership. Then there was the fuss over the planning reforms. Another consultation, another public fuss - this time accompanied by the unedifying spectacle of Government ministers resorting to childish name-calling. Their ire was directed at the likes of the National Trust, who had dared to oppose them. The result? The Prime Minister was wheeled out to soothe the furrowed brows of, amongst others, his own rural backbenchers.

This is the big one. An airport in the Thames Estuary would involve the large-scale destruction of a vast area of our natural environment and would be entirely inconsistent with any plans that this Government has for meeting its greenhouse gas reduction targets.

I don't hear the public clamouring for more airports - the "need" is being driven entirely by business interests. This loose alliance of developers and big business may provide the Government with money, but I am really not convinced that they provide it with votes. The Prime Minister would do well to remember this when he listens to Boris Johnson or George Osborne's latest cunning plan to generate short-term, unsustainable growth at any cost.

"Any cost" may mean an environmental cost, a quality of life cost, and a long-term growth cost, but I would argue that it could also mean a political cost to the governing parties in the coalition. It's not as if this option has not been discussed before. The last Government (which did have some daft ideas about a third runway at Heathrow) produced a White Paper which looked at the airport idea and concluded that it would be bad for business, bad for wildlife and bad for air safety. This Government now risks wasting public money in order to reach the same conclusion.

Be in no doubt: if the option of an airport in the Thames Estuary is included in the draft aviation white paper in March, we will fight this one. Not just because we value the landscape and wildife of the Thames Estuary. Not just because we are opposed to increases in airport capacity which would exacerbate climate change . It's because the economic model on which this is based is fundamentally flawed. We are in favour of smart growth, not dumb, destructive growth.

Over the next few days, I will try to share some of the detailed arguments that will need to inform the debate about the Government's stated ambition to retain its status an international aviation hub.  If you care about this agenda and wondering what to do, the first thing you could do is register your view on this online poll. I have a feeling that things may heat up a bit in the run up to the expected March publication of the draft aviation White Paper.

And one final thought - which of you conspiracy theorists out there would make the link between this harebrained airport plan and the Government's anti-enironment rhetoric? Think about it: apart from economics and air strikes, what stands in the way of the airport plan? The habitats regulations, for one thing - it is difficult to see that an airport in the Thames (with so much protected under European law) would pass the test of whether there are no alternative more environmentally benign ways of meeting what I assume will be their stated objective of increasing aviation capacity. Some may say that it was strange that the Government should start vilifying these environmental safeguards in the exact same speech that put airports back on the agenda. Whatever theory you hold, I firmly believe that the coalition Government, if it goes ahead with this plan, will be guilty, once again, of underestimating the public.

Do you agree? 

It would be great to hear your views.