Stop Bristol Airport Expansion (SBAE)

[TheLocalYokel]

SBAE application for a judicial review

The minutes of the recent airport consultative committee meeting show that Robert Sinclair, the airport CEO, told members that SBAE's judicial review application into the local authority's decision to approve the major planning application had resulted in a judgement on written submissions that there were no grounds for a judicial review to proceed.

SBAE has subsequently sought approval for an application renewal for an oral hearing. A date had yet to be set for the hearing.

There appears to have been a sharp exchange between the CEO and a committee member who is a long time opponent of airport expansion who had - at last, some might say - formally declared an interest as a director of SBAE.

This member referred to the requirement for information relating to the single occupancy of cars to be submitted to North Somerset Council by December 2011 and asked if the consultative committee could receive the figures at its next meeting.

The CEO declined to permit this, reminding members that SBAE was pursuing a judicial review against the local authority's decision to grant outline planning permission for the expansion and it would therefore be inappropriate to furnish such details to a director of SBAE.

The member who is also a local parish councillor said she was asking on behalf of the Parish Councils Airport Association and not as a director of SBAE.

The CEO suggested that if the Parish Councils Airport Association wished to secure such information they should write to him.

 

[Aviador]

Do you think there's any weight in the SABE campaign to stop the airport expansion?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Do you think there's any weight in the SABE campaign to stop the airport expansion?

In what way?

SBAE is a disparate group in some ways who, for various reasons, don't want the airport expanded - some don't want an airport at all.

They include Friends of the Earth, Campaign to Protect Rural England, parish councils and numerous individuals who, for varying reasons, wish to see no further expansion.

When the expansion was being considered by the local authority all those who formally objected appeared on a list within the local authority's website planning section. There were objections from all over the world, including a group from an Australiam university. These people aren't concerned with little old Bristol Airport - many had certainly never previously heard of it - but it's another tool with which to display their environmental mantra.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Judicial Review

A judge today rejected the application from SBAE for a judicial review into North Somerset Council's decision to approve the major expansion plans for the airport.

Unless the objectors can find another legal byway it now all seems set for the expansion to go ahead, albeit the airport has always said it will be done incrementally as traffic builds.

 

[Aviador]

Judicial Review

A judge today rejected the application from SBAE for a judicial review into North Somerset Council's decision to approve the major expansion plans for the airport.

Unless the objectors can find another legal byway it now all seems set for the expansion to go ahead, albeit the airport has always said it will be done incrementally as traffic builds.

This is great news. All the hard work by the airport seems to be paying off. Bring on the builders! :drinks:

 

[alphagolf]

This is great news. All the hard work by the airport seems to be paying off. Bring on the builders!

Great news for the airport today, lets hope SBAE don't have another plan to try and halt proceedings!

:yahoo:

alphagolf

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The SBAE spokeswoman was quoted on BBC Bristol News as saying she was disappointed and they would review the decision. However, she felt they had at least delayed the expansion for several years and the recession means passenger numbers are down.

No suggestion of any further legal action by SBAE - not sure what avenue would be open to them - but realistically they would know that it could cost them a lot of money as the local authority, secretary of state and now a High Court judge have ruled against them.

If they tried to take it further and lost it might be considered vexatious with all that might entail financially.

 

[alphagolf]

The SBAE spokeswoman was quoted on BBC Bristol News as saying she was disappointed and they would review the decision. However, she felt they had at least delayed the expansion for several years and the recession means passenger numbers are down.

No suggestion of any further legal action by SBAE - not sure what avenue would be open to them - but realistically they would know that it could cost them a lot of money as the local authority, secretary of state and now a High Court judge have ruled against them.

If they tried to take it further and lost it might be considered vexatious with all that might entail financially.

Has there been any comments from the airport yet? Wonder if they will look to start work asap!

alphagolf

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Has there been any comments from the airport yet? Wonder if they will look to start work asap!

I haven't read any yet. The Evening Post web site is now dreadful (as are the other 'This Is' sites) and it's like entering a maze to track reports on anything. If you enter 'Brisotl Airport' in the search box you bring up airport reports going back three or four years and not in chronological order.

They can be amusing to re-read with the benefit of hindsight but the system is annoying when you are looking for something current. I suspect though that the JR rejection might be reasonably prominent tomorrow in the EP website and no doubt the airport knockers will be back with their misinformation - the local BBC and EP are still putting about the old myth that Filton has the longest runway in the country. I can think of ten UK airports with longer runways than Filton off the top of my head.

At the beginning of this year the airport mentioned doing preparatory work in 2011 but that was before the JR application in April.

 

[Aviador]

I don't think it will go any further. As you say this has passed the secretary of state and a High Court judgement has ruled against stopping the airport expansion. I can't see SBAE being able to take any further action.

Is the application subject to any timescale or is the airport going to be able to start work when it chooses? Usually planning applications have a lifespan of a couple of years before work must begin in some form, or the application is extended.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The SBAE spokeswoman told the local media this morning that her group could see no way to continue blocking the airport expansion.

Instead they will monitor every phase of the expansion to ensure the planning consents are rigidly adhered to. She believes the expansion will go ahead more slowly than originally planned because of the recession. She may be right about that.

SBAE will also be a voice nationally to try to ensure that aviation meets its climate change obligations.

I was surprised that the SBAE spokeswoman had it all to herself on the lunchtime BBC Bristol tv News. The reporter said the airport had declined to put someone up for interview but instead issued a brief statement saying their efforts had been vindicated.

I'm not sure that was sound tactically with a lot of 'don't knows' or 'don't care that muchs' who only heard the opponents' side of things.

 

[MilesBeecham]

It all a good read.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

SBAE has closed down and its website has been archived with Bristol Friends of the Earth, one of the bodies that constituted the organisation.

In its press release last October at the time a High Court judge rejected its judicial review application into the approval of the major expansion planning decision SBAE said it would keep fighting 'to the end of the road to support local residents and the environment'. It seems it now recognises the end of that road has been reached.

SBAE signed off in a message on a website of a village close to BRS with childish and petty snipes at the airport, saying it would never reach its target figure of 10 mppa, and selectively quoting several misleading 'facts'.

I can't say I'm sorry to see them throw in the towel. They caused the airport much delay and expense over the past seven years though some of their outbursts were so silly that they caused some amusement. I'm sure that the most naive citizen of the Bristol area didn't believe a lot of what SBAE spouted.

 

[Aviador]

I didn't agree with the SBAE stance on the expansion of Bristol airport but I do find it sad in a way that they have decided to close down.

This might sound bonkers in light of the way SBAE have been towards Bristol airport but I do think airports need to receive a certain amount of criticism where needed. Airports shouldn't be able to just expect to build anything they want without any questions asked by the local community. You might say this is already done through the planning process, but the planning officers that make the final decision are usually an unelected part of the council so standard letters of concerns from the public can go largely unnoticed.

Lets hope if a replacement group is set up that they operate with a more reasoned approach.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I didn't agree with the SBAE stance on the expansion of Bristol airport but I do find it sad in a way that they have decided to close down.

Airports should certainly be held to account and not have a privileged position when it comes to planning matters.

The problem is that local issues such as the BRS expansion will be hijacked by national, even international, groups to further their own specific causes. The issue at stake then becomes swept up in a more general debate which, often as not, goes off at tangents.

When the BRS expansion was in the planning process the local authority's website was full of people and groups for and against it. The identity of someone formally supporting or objecting to a planning application has to be made publicly available (a worry for some individuals who might not take part because of this). With the BRS expansion application there was, for example, objections from a group at an Australian university. They'd probably never heard of Bristol, let alone its airport, but used this to pursue a general environmental issue.

SBAE was primarily the baby of Bristol Friends of the Earth with the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England and some local parish councils the other drivers. Interested individuals, for a variety of reasons, also joined the campaign.

The professional planning officers on a local authority recommend for or against a planning application and the elected councillors on the planning committee take the decision. In the Bristol region in recent years there have been some high profile perverse decisions where the councillors have gone against the advice of their professional planning officers.

One example was the BRS western walkway where the elected councillors, against the advice of their professional officers, originally declared it did not come within the scope of general permitted development which doesn't require formal planning consent.

Eventually they had to reverse their decision because they were advised that it was unsustainable in law.