Re: Consultative Committee Questions
Right guys, the outcome of today.
We had a chat before the meeting with Carl Papworth, who was actually the guy who attended the planning meeting and takes the lead on the terminal development issues. We also spoke to the Airport's publicity officer after the meeting. The outcome is that they are very much encouraged by the support, but that any on line petition sent to the council, whether it had 10 names on it or 10,000 names, counts only as one letter of support. For planning purposes therefore, it is not the way to go.
We asked about doing something similar to last time, or even the airport doing something on those lines itself, but they felt it was too late in the day now. What they asked is that people individually write to express their support, and their concern over the deferral, not to the planning department, but to the members of the Leeds West planning committee, especially the chairman, who incidentally is a member of the Consultative Committee and surprise surprise, didn't show today. In fact, nobody from Leeds City Council showed up. Perhaps just as well really. The names of all the Committee members are available (apparently) on the Council planning website.
The airport expect the application to go back in front of the Committee for further consideration in June. Perhaps understandably, they were a little reluctant to say too much, but it was clear that this is not an issue they intend giving up on. They are still having regular meetings though with the planning department and although nothing was said, it seemed that the planning officer was probably as surprised at the deferral as everyone else was. Any letters to councillors therefore need to be before the end of May - the sooner the better.
They confirmed that the terminal building plans were well supported, as was the principle of expansion, but obviously surface access and global warming (which is actually a central government issue and not within the remit of the council planners) appear to have become unwelcome distractions, along with the taxi drivers.
It was confirmed that the terminal development would create a minimum of 2,000 jobs directly.
The issue of bus services was discussed, and everyone agreed what the planning committee failed to understand, which is that first you have to have the passenger numbers and the variety of services to attract sufficient passengers to sustain the bus services. To do that, you first have to have an airport capable of handling those passengers, which means the expanded terminal. It is a clear chicken and egg situation.
I suggested that since public transport was obviously an issue, the Airport could demonstrate something tangible by working towards a shuttle bus service picking up rail passengers from Horsforth and Guiseley. The shuttle could be booked on the airport web site so as to prevent shuttles going up and down to/from stations for no purpose, but this would effectively give the airport an available rail link as a short term solution until a tram train could be provided - said to be a minimum 5 years away yet. The idea actually received a very warm reception from the MD who said that they would be talking to the appropriate people about this as a real possibility. Actually, I think it would be good to rename the stations Horsforth/Leeds Bradford Airport and Guiseley/Leeds Bradford Airport if this service was put in place.
On other issues, it was confirmed there were 'no plans' to change the name of the Airport, although it was suggested that to compliment Robin Hood Airport, LBA should be renamed Dick Turpin Airport since the parking charges were highway robbery (my parking charge from 1410 to 1700 was £9 although I had a get out of jail free card fortunately). I did think the new car park access ramps and landscaping etc was a vast improvement on before though. Nice new baggage trolleys advertising Ryanair on all of them too - at a cost of £1 now, but all new machines.
Lasers - there has been 9 incidents this year. The Police Helicopter is now scrambled when incidents are reported and th airport understands that there has been some arrests already although it has not been confirmed.
KLM - The airport are keen to see more flights and bigger aircraft on the AMS route now LHR has gone. They are talking to the airline about it.
Flybe - The first flights out to LGW appear to have been retimed and will now leave LBA at 0815. At present return seats are available for under £50, but average return fares overall are expected to be around £140, which is less than the standard 2nd class rail fare, which is scheduled to increase shortly by 11%. Over 500 seats were booked on the route in the first week, which is apparently exceptionally high, especially in the current climate.
PIA - the service continues to attract very high passenger loads and there is every chance of further expansion on the route by the airline in future. It was stated that PIA have confirmed they are to replace the A310 on the LBA route with the Boeing 777. No ifs or buts - confirmed, but no date yet when it will happen.
That's all folks. I will put some entries also on the relevant threads for KLM , Flybe and PIA.
