Four reasons why campaigners say Luton Airport expansion plans will be bad for our area, including Hitchin.

Consultation has started this week on proposals for such significant further expansion at Luton Airport – with campaigners strongly against such plans.

The National Planning Inspectorate has to make the decision, in a process which has already cost the airport owners more than £40 million.

Campaigners say the plan is 'a huge waste of public money' given the current expansion plan has not yet been completed, there is uncertainty about future demand in light of climate change, and lack of progress with vital airspace modernisation.

Hitchin MP Bim Afolami has added his weight to campaign groups, saying: "This week I have had meetings with both Luton Rising and the campaign groups in the constituency who are fighting against expansion.

"I am clear that plans to expand to 32 million passengers per annum would have a significant negative impact on local communities in our [Hitchin] constituency."

Here are four reasons why campaigners say Luton Airport expansion plans will be bad for our area, including Hitchin:

1 Noise

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Luton Airport currently has permission to fly 18 million passengers a year, and planning conditions require it to deliver a modernised and less noisy fleet of aircraft.

Yet the modernised aircraft now being introduced in ever greater numbers at Luton sound just as loud as their predecessors.

With flight and passenger numbers significantly reduced following the pandemic, Luton Airport already has headroom to recover inside its 2013 planning limits, which apply until 2028. Yet the owner is already pushing for 32 million passengers.

Campaigner John Hale added: "When Luton airport got permission to expand to 18 million passengers, residents were promised action would be taken to alleviate the noise nuisance – but since then the situation has worsened.

"Now the airport owner wants to increase the noise and environmental damage this Airport already causes."

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2 Bad for the environment

Plans for airport expansion also face concerns over environmental issues. Flying is simply not eco-friendly.

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The Airport has provided an outline plan which relies on Luton Council, its airport-owning company LLAL, airlines, passengers, and its own employees to cooperate – otherwise campaigners say 99% of its total emissions cannot be reduced.

They add that while the airport intends to achieve carbon neutrality by 2026 and net zero carbon for those 1% direct operational emissions by 2040 – however, it won't produce a plan with viable targets until the end of 2022.

Andrew Lambourne of campaigning group LADACAN said: "This plan continues to invest in the past rather than creating a more sustainable local economy.

"Kerosene-fuelled passenger aircraft aren't magically going to be replaced overnight; so-called sustainable fuels are very expensive and use biomass essential for other purposes - planting young trees is not going to solve the climate crisis."

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3 Debt

Auditors have expressed concern at the debts run up by Luton Borough Council during the pandemic, with the government requiring the council to reduce its financial dependence on the airport as part of its Covid support package.

Fierce opponent of the scheme, Mr Lambourne, also warned of financial consequences, explaining: "The area needs a more diverse local economy rather than just constantly returning to the obsessive vision of a decade ago.

"The world has moved on, and Luton Airport's owners need think differently. Look at their lack of resilience: the airport owning company was almost bankrupted by Covid, the town brought to its knees, and hundreds of millions of pounds of debt has been run up including a DART rail link which some think may never produce a return on investment.

"The vision for the future needs to change."

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4 Traffic and busier trains

With more fliers comes more traffic and busier trains to the airport - including routes from Hitchin when railway works are taking place. Who in our town hasn't seen rail replacement buses standing outside Hitchin station waiting to drive frustrated holidaymakers to Luton when the direct line from London to Luton is down.

Mr Lambourne added: "The last thing people who live in this area want – having been so badly affected in 2019 by a constant stream of ever-noisier flights, clogged roads and standing room only on trains – is the prospect of the situation getting far worse than that.

"Rather than economic benefit, it could blight the area. Luton Airport's operators mismanaged the previous growth trajectory, urged on by Luton Borough Council which failed to oversee them properly.

"Trust has been destroyed, no effective mitigations have been put in place, and people are utterly fed up with the reckless commercial greed being shown."