Mr Jeremy Pine

Mr Jeremy Pine

Planning Officer

Uttlesford District Council

London Road,

Saffron Walden

Essex CB11 4ER

Re: Planning reference UTT 0717 06 FUL

Dear Sir

With regard to the above application I wish to make the strongest OBJECTION.

BAA has applied for permission from Uttlesford District Council to use the existing Stansted runway to its maximum capacity which it estimates at 264,000 commercial flights a year. This would mean an extra approx. 80,000 jet flights per year in the skies of Essex. The BAA also wants UDC to abolish the current planning restriction which limits Stansted's throughput to 25 million passengers a year. This could eventually result in over 50 million passengers a year on the current runway, compared to just over 22 million in 2005.

Although I represent a ward in neighbouring Braintree District, residents complain to me NOW about disturbance from jet planes travelling to and from Stansted. Most ofthe disturbance is from jets leaving late in the evening which are climbing at thrust over mid-Essex (and hence noisier than on descent glide paths at same height). Although BAA Stansted appear to show no interest in noise disturbance 20 miles from the airport, I can assure you thatin quiet rural areas such as here, where background ambient noise is very low in the evening and at night, the jets can be very intrusive, capable of causing sleep disturbance and easily audible indoors with doors and windows closed.

Braintree District is also suffering ever greater levels of road traffic, some of which is generated from Stansted airport. I am particularly concerned about the impact on the A120 and roads that link to it such as the B1018 Braintree - Witham road. In my ward the villagers of Bradwell on the A120 suffer terribly from very high volumes of heavy traffic, which will increase if Stansted expands further.

BAA is describing the application as "purely" a variation on the current condition limits. However, the very real effects of further expansion, if given the go-ahead, would be felt far and wide across the region. BAA is effectively asking for Stansted to become bigger than Gatwick is today and, in fact, the busiest single runway airport in the world. And of course we know the real intentions of the BAA. They keep coming back for further expansion, decade after decade, taking what they can in slices as they build towards the multi-runway airport they desire. A further granting of permission now is an inevitable step towards a second runway and beyond.

The BAA have repeatedly failed to be straight with people about their current or future environmental impact. They use their Plane Talk newsletter to propagate "facts" that are actually carefully picked angles and interpretations of their performance that mask reality.

The most recent Plane Talk (August 2006) takes this to the extreme and makes a series of highly misleading and false claims. Please find below comparisons between those claims and details (probably much less read by the public) in their "Corporate Responsibility" (CR) document:

In all respects (although there are no accurate figures for road transport and jet produced CO2) Stansted airport is impacting ever more heavily on the environment year on year - completely at odds with the impression given in Plane Talk.

1. Recycling
Plane Talk : "We recycled over 25% of all airport waste last year - in all over 5,250 tonnes."
CR document: TOTAL waste 5,259 tonnes (i.e. same as claimed recycled total above !).
Total waste in 2000/01 = 3,805 tonnes. Increase in total waste tonnage in 5 years 1,454 tonnes = 38% increase.
Waste landfilled in 2005/6 3,927 tonnes compared with 1,972 tonnes in 2000/01 = an increase in 5 years of 1,955 tonnes = 99% increase.
2. Traffic
Plane Talk: "Cutting traffic - reducing emissions - The number of private car journeys to and from the airport FELL from 57% to 47% in 2005".
CR document: 2004 car use was 50.1% NOT 57% and the 2005 figure was 47.6%. So the reduction was just 2.5% in the year NOT the 10% claimed.
Comment - an apparently grossly misleading figure - another typo or is it deliberate? Also figures are almost meaningless unless ABSOLUTE number of passengers/motorised vehicles accessing airport are published. They are not. I would suggest that the real figures will show a LARGE INCREASE in motor vehicle access to and from airport in last 5 years and thus a LARGE INCREASE in emissions. If so "Cutting traffic - cutting emissions" is a grossly misleading line in Plane Talk.
3. Energy and climate change
Plane Talk: "Over the last 5 years we have reduced the amount of energy used per passenger by 34%".
CR document: Total annual energy use has INCREASED from 94,419 MWH to 112,272 MWH in the 5 years to 2005/6 - an increase of 17,853MWH per year - an increase of 19%.
So the figure for energy use per passenger, whilst it may be true within a narrow definition, has apparently been carefully chosen instead of the more informative total energy use. Also, the energy use figures presumably do not take into account total related energy use/demand from surface travel and flights.
Plane Talk on climate change : No figures on this, the most important environmental impact from the activities at Stansted.
C.R. document: CO2 from the airport energy and gas use has increased in the 5 years from 2000/01 to 2005/6 from 36,600 tonnes per annum to 42,429 - an increase of 5829 tonnes of CO2 per annum - an increase of 16%.The quoted figures showing a decrease in CO2 per passenger presumably do not include surface access or flights.
Again, no figures are given for the highly damaging jet aircraft CO2 emissions increase in the 5 year period which presumably would be disastrous PR for BAA Stansted. The BAAs stated preference for carbon trading is simply a means of buying permission to pollute. There is no meaningful mitigation for the increasing amounts of CO2 that aviation is pumping high into the atmosphere, which not only has a multiplied radiative forcing impact compared with surface emitted CO2, but also has a residence in the atmosphere of decades or even a century.

4. Water use
Plane Talk: Nothing.
CR document: Total water use per annum has increased in the 5 years to 2005/6 from 483,141 tonnes to 714,918 tonnes - a staggering increase of 231,777 tonnes (equivalent to cubic metres) which is a 48% increase.
Conclusions:
The information in Plane Talk appears to be partial, highly misleading and misquotes the BAAs own statistics found in the CR document.
The impression is given of an improving environmental record.
In reality, from the BAAs own figures (albeit minus data on road traffic and aircraft CO2) the following appears to be the truth, as NOT published in Plane Talk and hence NOT told to the residents of 200,000 households which is the claimed circulation figure:
WASTE FIGURES IN PLANE TALK APPEAR TO CONFUSE TOTAL AMOUNT WITH RECYCLED AMOUNT
TOTAL WASTE PRODUCTION UP BY 38% AND LANDFILLED WASTE DOUBLED IN 5 YEARS TO 2005/6

ROAD TRAFFIC - DATA CONFUSING AND MISSING. CLAIM OF 10% REDUCTION IN % OF PASSENGERS USING CARS APPEARS TO BE FALSE
NO COMPARISON POSSIBLE DUE TO LACK OF DATA BUT HIGHLY LIKELY THERE HAS BEEN SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN ROAD TRAFFIC AND HENCE EMISSIONS - COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE OF CLAIMED "CUTTING TRAFFIC - CUTTING EMISSIONS"
ENERGY USE UP BY 19% IN 5 YEARS - SO CLAIM OF "SAVING ENERGY" IS MISLEADING
CO2 FROM AIRPORT UP BY 16% IN 5 YEARS - NOT ADMITTED IN PLANE TALK
NO FIGURES ON THE FAR MORE DAMAGING HUGE INCREASE IN CO2 FROM JET FLIGHTS
WATER USE UP BY A STAGGERING 231,777 TONNES IN THE DRIEST COUNTY IN THE UK - A 48% INCREASE IN JUST 5 YEARS
This analysis does not include the many other ways in which Stansted airport is impacting on the environment - including:

The impact on people's health from air pollution, sleep disturbance and noise stress

The impact on locally important habitats such as Hatfield Forest

The impact on the natural environment of the night and the night sky - nocturnal animals and the ability to see the stars are being hit by ever worse light pollution, to which Stansted adds more lights every year

The impact on the daytime sky of ever more jet trails and smog inducing aerosols

So in every respect, Stansted airport is increasing its environmental impact on Essex and the planet. Water use, fuel use, energy use - are all increasing and in a completely unsustainable manner which will be magnified hugely if further expansion is allowed. There are no figures published by the BAA in its "Corporate Responsibility" document for road traffic increases but these are highly likely to have been large over the last 5 years, adding to fuel, energy use and emissions. Total CO2 and other emissions to the atmosphere are impossible to measure from the BAAs figures but are highly likely to be increasing substantially as any efficiency gains in cars, planes or infrastructure are greatly outweighed by increasing activity.

Expansion to 35 mppa or beyond will means MILLIONS of additional car journeys on the roads of Essex, even allowing for public transport use.

BAA Stansted is contributing to the increasing concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere which the vast majority of climate scientists believe is directly linked to climate change. The impacts of climate change are becoming more evident year on year including temperature extremes, prolonged droughts, more violent storms, thinning and melting arctic sea ice, retreating glaciers and sea level rise. Yet the boss of Ryanair, Stansted's main airline boasted in the press that his company would increase emissions and that his competitors would be "lemmings" if they were concerned about climate change.
Where in Plane Talk is ANY of that mentioned ? The BAA talks of responsibility. Yet it seems utterly incapable of admitting its real responsibly in increasing environmental pressure and even appears unable to publish its own environmental performance statistics accurately.
Instead the BAA appears to choose to misrepresent its impact in order to continue to expand Stansted whilst the effect of its unmitigated activities are contributing to a very serious global problem.

It is argued that the airport must expand to accommodate demand. But that demand is not spontaneous. It is being vigorously encouraged by low cost airlines using often near the knuckle advertising and ridiculously low fares and on the back of a highly advantageous taxation regime. It is ever more likely that the taxation treatment of aviation will change, with taxes on aviation fuel and flights. And incredibly, the BAA makes most of its money not from "the freedom to fly" but from car park charges and shopping.

In any case, the argument that people's "freedom to fly" is worth the environmental price is untenable. Studies have shown that much of the growth at Stansted is not the much touted low income people flying for the first time, but middle and higher incomes groups flying more and more - often on leisure trips that are not essential and certainly cannot be reconciled against the rapidly growing impact aviation is having locally and globally.

I urge the council to reject the application by the BAA. Stansted at 25mppa represents half the population of England using the airport each year, hardly a small or stifled business. No one is seriously arguing that the airport should be shut down - it will remain a busy airport based in Essex. It is important the BAA is made to work much harder to deal as far as is possible with the current impacts it creates. Further expansion beyond 25mppa is unthinkable.

There simply is no possible meaningful mitigation that can be taken against further expansion. Jet engine efficiency in terms of noise and fuel use improvements will be swamped by the sheer speed and extent of increasing flight numbers - as the industry has itself admitted.

Further expansion also will make the valued efforts by people, councils and organisations in Essex to combat climate change utterly utile. Uttlesford District Council jointly signed with Braintree DC the Nottingham Declaration on tackling climate change earlier this year.

Yet the increased CO2 emissions from an expanded Stansted airport with another 80,000 aircraft movements per annum cannot be mitigated. If the people of Essex were to try, then every household in the county would have to stop using any fossil fuel derived energy - no lighitng, no heating, nothing. That is the scale of the environmental impact of this airport and it must not be allowed to expand any further.

Yours

Cllr. James Abbott B.Sc.
Braintree District Councillor

Bradwell, Silver End and Rivenhall ward

Waterfall Cottages

Rivenhall

Essex

CM8 3PR