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February 04, 2003
Airport at Cliffe is fatally flawed
As the Government prepares to launch its revised consultation on the future of air transport in the UK, the RSPB says the option of a new airport at Cliffe is fatally flawed and it should be dropped.
The Society highlights five key issues that make the Cliffe option a non-starter:
* Environmental importance - the outstanding international importance of the Thames estuary for birds (1), means that the Cliffe area is heavily protected by UK and European conservation laws (2). EU Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom has already indicated that the Cliffe option would only be allowed in the absence of alternative solutions and if the Government could demonstrate it was in the "overriding public interest"(3). Legal battles arising from a decision to pursue the Cliffe option would be likely to lead to years of delays, thereby demolishing any business case that can be made for Cliffe.
* Passenger safety - siting an airport where planes would take off and land through an area that supports concentrations of up to 200,000 wading birds, ducks and geese, poses a major risk of birdstrikes on a scale that could easily down aircraft, with disastrous consequences. The Government's own Birdstrike Avoidance Team has said of Cliffe: "There is a very serious potential birdstrike risk at the new airport site. Indeed, it is difficult to envisage a more problematic site anywhere else in the UK. " (4)
* Funding - Government will not foot the bill for a new airport at Cliffe and there is no evidence that anyone else is willing to meet the massive costs of a new airport, plus the necessary transport, business and social infrastructure to go with it. Estimates of the final cost of the Cliffe option range from £11.5bn to £23bn (5). This does not include the cost of compensating for direct and indirect habitat loss - which could run into hundreds of millions of pounds.
* Business viability - there is no support for the Cliffe option within the aviation industry. Airlines have identified Cliffe as their least favoured option, with some suggesting they would need massive financial incentives to consider moving there (6). BA has said: "We don't think it is possible to build a new airport in the time scale needed for new runway capacity in the southeast of England." (7)
* Technical challenges - Environment Agency staff have said that if the airport is built at Cliffe there is a real possibility of flooding in London, as well as in the Cliffe/Cooling marshes area and that in the long term a second Thames Barrier may be required in the Gravesend/Tilbury area. (8)
More -
Dr Mark Avery, RSPB Director of Conservation, said: "The case for a new airport at Cliffe is so weak that the Government should acknowledge it's a non-starter and kick it out of the revised consultation process. An airport at Cliffe would be the single most environmentally destructive planning development the UK has ever seen. The airlines don't want it, the City isn't prepared to pay for it, it's illegal and it's dangerous."
Additional notes:
1. Up to 200,000 wading birds, ducks and geese winter in the areas affected by the proposal, including large numbers of Bewick's swans, brent geese, white-fronted geese, shelducks, gadwall, teal, ringed plovers, grey plovers, knot and black-tailed godwits. Breeding birds affected would include the UK's largest heronry (160 pairs) at Northward Hill, little egrets, avocets and marsh harriers.
2. The proposed airport at Cliffe would be the single most destructive development affecting nationally and internationally protected wildlife sites in the UK since the passage of the Wildlife Countryside Act in 1981. The combination of the airport footprint and 13 kilometre birdstrike safeguarding zone would impact upon no less than four internationally important wetland sites, hosting annual peak counts of 200,000 waterfowl.
These are: The Thames Estuary and Marshes Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ramsar site; Medway Estuary and Marshes SPA/Ramsar site; Benfleet and Southend Marshes SPA/Ramsar site; The Swale SPA/Ramsar site. Special Protection Areas are designed under the EU Birds Directive and are the most important places for birds in the European Union. Ramsar sites are wetlands of global importance listed under the Ramsar Convention. Hundreds of hectares of internationally protected wildlife sites would be destroyed in the process and the whole of the Northward Hill SSSI/High Halstow National Nature Reserve, an RSPB reserve since 1956, would be lost.
3. Responding to a question from Dr Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for south-east England, Commissioner Wallstrom said the proposed development at Cliffe, which lies within the Thames Estuary Marshes Special Protection Area, would be subject to an environmental assessment and any "significant damage" to the SPA would be allowed only in the absence of alternative solutions. The Government would also have to demonstrate any development would be in the "overriding public interest".
4. Central Science Laboratory Birdstrike Avoidance Team - North Kent Marshes Study Phase 1 Report, Jan 2002.
5. Costs of recent major infrastructure projects (Channel Tunnel, Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Jubilee Line extension) have overrun by between 67% and 108%. If applied to the Government's projected cost for Cliffe airport of £11.5bn, the final cost could be anywhere between £16bn and £23bn.
6. In a poll of the top 33 carriers using London airports, not one was prepared to move to the proposed site at Cliffe. Only three airlines did not rate Cliffe bottom when asked which out of Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Cliffe they would move to if they could not operate from their current preferred base. More than half declared that only a subsidy might persuade them to move to Cliffe. (The poll was conducted by consultants Citigate for Medway Council - full details can be found at www.medway.gov.uk).
7. Air Cargo World Online, October 2002.
8. Evidence from Barrie Neaves of the Environment Agency to Medway Council's Air Transport Consultation Task Group, September, 2002. (For more info see www.medway.gov.uk).
Posted by Surfbirds at February 4, 2003 11:18 PM
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