Jeff Gazzard: Grassroots rebellion could halt growth in flights

The climate change impacts of flying have generated many column inches in recent months and quite rightly so. Our addiction to flying around the world for those oh-so-vital three-hour business meetings or that irresistible 99p fare plus taxes and charges to get drunk in Prague without a care in the world has come under severe pressure.

The UK's strategies to reduce greenhouse gases now look somewhat lame in the face of the continuing seemingly inexorable growth in air travel emissions. But at a local level, around the UK's expanding airports, where more noise, worsening air quality, habitat loss and increased road traffic also have significant negative environmental impacts, there are signs of change. Communities, local authorities and in one or two cases the Government's planning regime are starting to not just question but actually say "no" to unrestrained airport development.

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Is the Government's plan to grow passenger numbers from today's 220 million to around 500 million per year by 2030 starting to fall apart?

Now might just be the time when the concentrated efforts of communities and local government can present strong evidence-based reasons why airport development should be constrained and more importantly increase the pressure on airport management to make legally-binding commitments to live within their means.

If Coventry airport's plans for a new terminal for two million passengers have been rejected, then let's see a limit put on passenger numbers that reflect what local people are prepared to accept. Equally, if Luton airport has decided not to build a second runway there, what constraints can be imposed to make sure this never, ever happens?

Well-thought out plans to allow some reasonable growth are perfectly feasible: reducing car parking to control car dependency for passengers and airport staff alike while funding better public transport access; real, not illusory night-flight limits; property buyouts on a much, much wider scale instead of near-useless double glazing schemes (ever tried to double glaze a garden?); and never exceed flight numbers that give local people the stability and reassurance that they need and have a right to expect. It must be possible for the air transport industry and government to recognise there are real limits to expansion as the recent series of airport "nos" and "maybes" appear to indicate. Now would be a very good time to sit down and discuss a sustainable future that perhaps recognises we might all be flying a bit less in the future than the Government's unrestrained expansion plans forecast.

Jeff Gazzard is a board member of the Aviation Environment Federation