A High Court judge has approved plans to expand Bristol Airport, increasing its capacity from 10m to 12m passengers per year.
In a judgment handed down today at the Bristol Civil Justice Centre, planning judge Mr Justice Lane dismissed legal objections brought by local residents and environmental campaigners.
Planning authority North Somerset Council initially rejected the plans but the airport appealed and, in February last year, after nine-week hearing, a panel of three planning inspectors approved the expansion.
The claimants had argued the expansion of the airport would have a serous and unacceptable effect on climate change. However, inspectors found the plans were not in breach of planning law or government planning and environmental policy.
The campaigners appealed to the High Court but in a ruling handed down today, the judge said the planning inspectors had made no errors of law so their decision should stand.
In the opening paragraph of his ruling, the judge said climate change was of great importance.
“In the same month in which this appeal was heard in Bristol, world leaders and other policy-makers gathered in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, for COP27, in order to discuss this matter.
“There is an international consensus on the need to achieve substantial reductions in CO2 emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2021 was widely reported as being a ‘Code Red for Humanity’, such is the present level of concern.”
Even so, he said the legal issues behind this appeal were more complicated than the rights and wrongs of air travel and were, in fact, about stated policy on the issue.
“I should make clear that nothing in this judgment is to be taken as contradicting what is said in its opening paragraph regarding the significance of climate change and GHGs [greenhouse gas emissions].
“The main issue in this case is not whether emissions from any additional aircraft using Bristol Airport should be ignored. Plainly, they should not. Rather, it is about how and by whom those emissions should be addressed,” he said.
Bristol Airport Action Network Co- Ordinating Committee (Acting Through Stephen Clarke)
v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities; (1) Bristol Airport Ltd; (2) North Somerset Council
Planning Court (Sitting in Bristol) (Lane J) 31 January 2023
