TAX AVIATION AND ADD VAT TO ALL TICKETS AND SERVICES NOW.
MAKE IT A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD OR THOUSANDS OF JOBS WILL BE LOST IN ROAD AND RAIL TRANSPORT AS THEY CANNOT COMPETE.

On long trips with a full aircraft, air travel is more economical per passenger per mile than a car. People aren’t going to fly less, so help us to help the environment. Add another runway.

Dear Ms. Kelly,

Response to DfT Consultation, Adding Capacity at Heathrow Airport

During the 1990’s I opposed expansion of Heathrow, submitting reports on the ill effects of air pollution to the Terminal Five Public Enquiry, using Whitehall statistics on a range of measures. All the figures demonstrated clearly that living in or downwind of the Heathrow-M3-M4 Triangle is deleterious to the health of local residents: worse, indeed, than living in central London.

Shortly before the 1997 General Election, when political commentators were confidently predicting a “massive Labour landslide” after “18 years of Tory misrule”, a local newspaper asked election candidates in surrounding constituencies for their views about Heathrow. All of them, regardless of political party, replied that, as a local candidate, they were opposed to Terminal Five and to any further expansion. Tellingly, the only exception was that all the Labour candidates refused to answer the question, despite the landslide victory, [which materialised, as predicted].

The current DfT exercise is, outside Whitehall, universally recognised as a meaningless sham: not a consultation, just a con, based on half-truths and lies, and manipulatively designed to deny respondents the opportunity to say, “No, I don’t want this”, instead steering and coercing them into supplying the answers the DfT is so desperately seeking. While many have been outspoken in their criticism, even the DfT-friendly West London Business observe in their Response to Consultation: “some of the individual consultation questions are very technical in nature and not directly within the scope of our knowledge or expertise”, [www.westlondon.com/uploads/FinalWLBResp onsetoHeathrowCapacityConsultation.doc].

The recent DfT tour of selected areas around Heathrow displayed exhibition panels which repeatedly chanted the mantra, “The Government believes”: but without any justification. Such fervour may be appreciated in theocracies: but it has no place in UK Government.

Although Terminal Five is not scheduled to open until 27th March, west London transport is already at a standstill, with gridlocked roads, overcrowded buses, trains, and tubes, and tailbacks reported on the Heathrow motorway spur practically daily. Much of the surface transport is, of course, servicing the bloated airport. Do you, as Secretary of State for Transport, see regular reports on this deterioration? Do you have figures projecting how dire it will become this summer, once T5 is operating? And do you think, as Secretary of State for Transport, that expanding Heathrow still further can be viable, even just from a transport perspective?

However, as neither the DfT nor the rest of us live in a vacuum, joined-up Government must consider other aspects. For a proposed development with such horrendous potential consequences, this clearly requires involving, consulting and collaborating with DEFRA and the Dept. of Health: an exercise which should perhaps be coordinated by the Cabinet Office. Other Government Departments should also be included: e.g. to consider the effect of severely disrupted education in the 100+ schools under flightpaths, the effect on mental health, disaffection, alienation, antisocial behaviour, drug abuse, violent crime, unemployment prospects, overcrowding of young offenders’ institutions and prisons, etc..

At the time of the T5 public enquiry we were concerned about noise and air pollution. The antiquated Concorde with its thunderous roar and filthy engines has thankfully been taken out of service: although its ghost lives on in DfT before-and-after comparisons of noise: which curiously retain the old 57 decibel limit, instead of 50, as recommended by the World Health Organisation, and also by the DfT Attitudes to Noise from Aviation Sources in England (ANASE) report published in November. The lower limit includes the two million residents represented by the twelve boroughs of the “2M Group”, where politicians of all political parties are united in opposition to further expansion.

The annual toll of premature deaths from air pollution is now recognised: accompanied by sickness, unemployment, loss of quality of life, and drain on our NHS and social services, already at breaking point. London’s experiments with the Congestion Charge and Low Emission Zone attempt to reduce emissions. But aviation fuel remains untaxed, and aircraft continue to burn it at high altitude, at low altitude, and to dump excess fuel into residents’ homes, gardens, and lungs. The DfT is already accustomed to noise contours. The Dept. of Health should publish contours showing excess deaths, excess sickness, and excess mental illness. Can the DWP produce unemployment contours?

The DfT consultation document, Adding Capacity at Heathrow Airport, runs to 240 pages: yet an automated search of the .PDF version fails to find even a single mention of health. Requests last year by Hounslow Primary Care Trust and from Hounslow Civic Centre for a Health Impact Assessment of further expansion were ignored in the first case and rejected in the second. However, publicity about Prof. Lars Jarup’s recent study into the effects of noise on residents’ health near six international airports, including Heathrow, has prompted renewed requests for a proper HIA. Given the recent rash of exposés about Government departments that are unable even to manage a database, I have severe doubts as to whether the DfT and the Dept. of Health could collaborate effectively on an impartial Health Impact Assessment. Nevertheless, I urge you to attempt this novel experiment.

The health of residents is unarguably affected by the cocktail of air pollution [including components due to aviation both directly and indirectly, e.g. surface transport of air freight, air passengers, and other airport users, workers, and visitors], and by noise and noise-related stress, [from aircraft and surface transport]. Increased gridlock also adds to the delays experienced by ambulances reaching patients and taking them to the overstretched A&E departments of our local hospitals, [which are regularly on various stages of alert, or even closed to admissions], endangering the likely health outcomes of these patients: or, indeed, their very survival. That at least one hospital –the West Middlesex– lies directly under a flightpath, worryingly close to the airport, is a further cause for concern.

In addition to concerns about air pollution and the health of local residents, we are now faced by dwindling oil supplies and the risk of catastrophic and irreversible global climate change. In January, The Times reported that Shell’s Chief Executive, Jeroen van der Veer, had warned staff in an email that “after 2015 supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand”, [http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b usiness/economics/wef/article3248484.ece  ]. BA is [belatedly, and with motives suspected of being stratospherically partisan] supporting research by the University of Cambridge into the warming effects of condensation trails, nitrogen dioxide, and other aircraft emissions, [www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environm ent/article3193045.ece]; and Virgin Atlantic has just staged [or stage-managed] a test flight [described by some news reports as gimmicky], chiefly using kerosene, but additionally with one of the four engines containing 20% of an exotic and unsustainable biofuel, for stage use only, [www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb  /25/biofuels.theairlineindustry]. What fuel does the DfT envisage that aircraft will use once conventional mineral oil [used not just for fuel but also required extensively for lubrication, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing] has incontrovertibly peaked? What truly impartial UK research into sustainably renewable sources of energy for aviation is the DfT funding?

EU legislation will limit emissions from cars and ships, but will essentially leave aviation –where emissions are amongst the fastest growing– to carry on with business as usual: until the holocaust. And the notion of emissions trading, which allows companies to buy and sell permits to pollute, is morally bankrupt. If Jacqui Smith announced that, to reduce the number of muggings, she would limit everyone to an annual quota of, say, two muggings a year, but allow thugs wishing to exceed this quota to carry on regardless, so long as they bought permits from others who remain under quota, she would be a laughing stock. How does the DfT expect to sell this idea to the public?

If aviation had to pay commercial rates and taxes, including the cost of cleaning up the pollution it causes, and without exemption from VAT and fuel duty, the demand might reduce. This must happen soon. The only question is how soon it will happen, how long the industry will remain cocooned, how much damage will be done in the meantime to the health of locals, and whether the risk of catastrophic global climate change can still be averted.

The required Health Impact Assessment must therefore be complemented by a corresponding Environmental Impact Assessment. However, DEFRA and the Dept. of Health must work together on examining the issues and potential consequences: a true test of joined-up government.

Only last week it was reported [www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.release18 Feb08.htm] that a sustainable population for the UK is between 17 and 27 million: less than half our population today. The exact figure will depend upon how much each of us wishes to consume and pollute. But it is manifestly clear that there is no room for growth in individual consumption: and no room for expansion at Heathrow, or of aviation generally.

This weekend we read [www.independent.co.uk/environment/clima te-change/britains-year-zero-uk-to-leap- from-laggard-to-leader-on-carbon-dioxide -emissions-786534.html] that Caroline Flint is about to set an ambitious target for eliminating carbon dioxide emissions from non-domestic buildings, on top of an existing “government commitment to make all new housing zero carbon by 2016 –the most exacting target anywhere in the world – [to] set Britain on the road to a new energy age, with conservation measures and renewable sources replacing the wasteful burning of fossil fuel”. Interestingly, this is not a Government initiative: simply a Government response to “a landmark report by the industry-led UK Green Building Council … [which] includes some of the country’s biggest developers and property companies”. [As new housing accounts for only about 1% of housing stock, and around 40% is over 60 years old, it will, of course, be necessary to retrofit old housing.] Can aviation learn from the construction industry? And is Gordon Brown’s Government capable of any innovation that is not being promoted by industrial concerns?

The aforementioned response by West London Business relies upon a report last year by Deloitte, The Heathrow Phenomenon, [www.westlondon.com/uploads/heathrowphen omenon.pdf]. This admits prominently in the first half-page that “the analysis of environmental and social implications of growth around Heathrow was outside the scope of this study – it focuses only on economic impacts”: a focus which fails to include the economic effects of catastrophic global climate change and public health. Deloitte’s Phenomenon refers to their 2005 study, “Strategies and Solutions for Sustaining Success in Surrey and the Thames Valley”, which writes off “the delicate balance and interrelationships among economic and environmental resources in that sub-region, [as although] the area’s natural beauty, excellent transport links, and strong skills base may have served as drivers for growth and economic prosperity up to this point, these same advantages may now be eroding”. Does this mean that Deloitte and West London Business would be happy to see all of Surrey and the Thames Valley buried under concrete, to allow Heathrow to expand still further?

Not all the businesses consulted share this dismal view, as the Phenomenon’s editors failed to censor this quote from an unnamed business. – “Globalisation is about much more than Heathrow although it clearly has a role to play in it. Moving forward we envisage making much more use of advances in communication –such as video conferencing– to mitigate the environmental consequences of our actions.” Indeed, the authors commented, “Businesses seem to think that Heathrow is a part of globalisation but perhaps not such an important driver as communications”: presaging the recent decision by Prince Charles not to fly his entourage to Dubai, instead addressing last month’s World Future Energy Summit electronically, [www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml =/news/2008/01/22/ncharles122.xml].

Without adducing any further evidence, West London Business say that they “support the building of a third runway and the other measures, such as mixed mode”, and claim that there “has been no runway development since 1946″, which examination of A-Z maps demonstrates to be patently false. They state that “the airport cannot meet the demand for travel in the age of globalisation”: ignoring the Phenomenon’s conclusion that businesses consider communications are more important for globalisation than Heathrow; and without stopping to think that perhaps the age of predict-and-provide has had its day. They advocate a quick and dirty “move to mixed mode use, which could be achieved within two years, benefiting the business community and all other airport users”: regardless of the threat of catastrophic global climate change, or of the concerns of local residents.

West London Business “fully support the application of strict environmental conditions for expansion”, and unquestioningly “accept the government’s view that noise, air quality and surface transport conditions can be met through the use of new technologies”. Their belief ["that unilateral national actions will do no more than to damage the UK’s competitiveness. Focusing on the aviation industry alone (when it contributes only 6% of the UK’s CO2 emissions, according to the Stern Report) also seems ineffectual. Such issues must be dealt with at the international level and broader industry level to be effective."] is only partially correct. – It is true that emissions must be dealt with internationally: but this is no excuse for procrastination while international agreement is achieved, allowing Neroesque fiddling while global warming sets in and our planet burns. It is also true that focusing on the aviation industry alone would be ineffectual: but equally true that aviation simply cannot be allowed to continue with its profligate ways. Cars, shipping, and construction are [belatedly] beginning to be addressed. Aviation –if it wishes to survive at all– must join in now and jump on the bandwagon: or fall off and disappear like chariots and penny-farthings.

At London’s City Hall last month, BAA’s Chief Executive, Stephen Nelson, under questioning about BAA assurances that no third runway at Heathrow would be required, refused to rule out future demands for a sixth terminal or a fourth runway, and announced that BAA was “working very hard” to reduce the carbon footprint of Heathrow’s buildings: impervious to the filth being belched out by aircraft into our atmosphere, [www.london.gov.uk/view_press_release_a. jsp?releaseid=15378]. In the same way that Terminal Five was predicted by BAA to double the size of Heathrow on practically every measure used, the “added capacity” this time has been compared to adding a Gatwick to Heathrow, resulting in additional emissions with exceed those of the whole of Kenya. – Who dreamt up the spin to call this blandly “added capacity”?

Who needs this additional capacity, anyway? Many flights are currently half empty. Destinations formerly served have been deleted by airlines, as unprofitable. Of the members of the Institute of Directors, only 1% reportedly consider a third runway is a top priority.

The Climate Change Bill requires a 60% reduction on 1990 CO2 levels by 2050: yet scientists now say a cut of at least 80% will be needed – and that we have at most a few years to clean up our act. If we reach a “tipping point”, climate change will spiral irredeemably beyond our control.

In 2002 Gordon Brown, reusing the words from a 1995 speech by Bill Clinton, spoke of the need to make “tough choices and hard decisions”, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ 1882631.stm + http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Presidenti al_Radio_Address_-_25_February_1995. Faced with the imminent risk of irreversible global climate change, and the catastrophic consequences, the sacrifices may be tough, but the decision is easy: unless we all want to be toast.

The time has come to put an end to this madness. Heathrow expansion? For the sake of our species, and of countless others, [as many have already disappeared in recent years, and others are dying fast]: NO!