EXAMINATION OF LATEST LUTON AIRPORT EXPANSION PLAN STARTS TODAY

The formal Examination of an application by Luton Airport's owners to expand its capacity to 32 million passengers a year from the current 18 million cap starts today, Thursday [August 10].

A team of Inspectors will review in detail proposals to build a second Terminal and more car parks on Wigmore Park in Luton, and substantially increase the numbers of flights late in the evening and early in the morning to accommodate the extra passengers.

This comes at a time when the UN has said the world has moved from the era of 'global warming' to 'global boiling', and wild fires sweep through resorts in the Mediterranean and Portugal. 

Speaking on behalf of LADACAN, a community group opposed to further expansion at Luton, Andrew Lambourne said: "This assessment of massive further expansion at an airport which has already doubled its capacity since 2012, is also an examination of government policy on carbon emissions and noise.

"The UK has lost its way on addressing global warming, and its 'Jet Zero' aspirations for zero-emissions flight rely on so-called Sustainable Aviation Fuels which can't be produced at scale without compromising vital resources such as animal feedstocks.

"Flying yet more aircraft before airspace has been redesigned to cut the emissions and noise from planes circling in holding stacks makes no sense, and filling the late evening and early morning with aircraft noise is directly harmful to people's health and well-being. Yet the government has its head firmly buried in the sand as the world catches fire around us." 

Luton Airport is owned by Luton Borough Council (LBC) via its subsidiary Luton Rising, whose Board mainly comprises Luton Borough Councillors. Luton is unique as a major UK airport wholly owned by the local council which also acts as its planning authority whilst receiving substantial financial return from the airport operation.

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The Council relies on the Airport for providing jobs, whilst being responsible for planning enforcement. Many people regard the situation as an unresolved conflict of interest in a very poorly diversified local economy, Mr Lambourne asserted.

On the issues of Luton in particular, Mr Lambourne went on to say: "It's tragic that the Councillors who run Luton Rising have been so obsessed with growing the Airport they appear to have lost sight of the need for prudence.

"Having run up half a billion pounds of debt on projects such as the DART rail link, the interest payments alone will soak up much of the future revenue from the Airport.

"How does that benefit the people of Luton?"

"As for the wider area, this proposal would create noise blight across north Hertfordshire, with flights increasingly starting at 5 in the morning and running on into the early hours, keeping thousands more people awake at night. The harms outweigh any possible benefits."