Letter to Tewksbury Council regarding the expansion of Staverton Airport

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Dear Sirs/Madams

I am writing to you with regard to the development proposals that have currently been submitted by Staverton Airport .

The developments are outlined in the Staverton Airport ’s 5 year business plan. This clearly states that the business case for these improvements is aimed at increasing usable runway length to facilitate the introduction of additional services to UK and Continental airports.

Many of these proposed services are targeted towards business jets and short services such as links to London . These types of services are the most CO2 intensive method of travel. In addition, the government’s aviation white paper states that the high altitude that these gases are emitted at increases the global warming contribution by up to a factor of 4.

You will also no doubt be aware of the conclusions of the recent IPCC report on global warming. This report is absolutely unequivocal in its warnings on the severity of the issue that we face and its logic can not be denied in any way. As a society we face fundamental decisions about development and we need to recognise that the old assumptions about continued growth can no long apply. Strong and enlightened leadership is now called for in the challenge to these past assumptions.

In Staverton Airport ’s business case, they provide a conservative estimate of the additional services that they plan to introduce and the additional fuel that they will sell. Their plan is to introduce many more additional services over and above the base level in the business plan; furthermore having made the initial investment in the facilities they will be actively incentivised to introduce as many new services as possible to recoup their investment.

Staverton Airport argues on its web site that its contribution to global warming is negligible. This is a weak argument as we can all state that our individual contribution to global warming is negligible. The fact is that the cumulative amount of all our contributions is massive and growing and well beyond what the planet can sustain. Therefore, we all need to have the discipline to minimise our emissions.

I urge you to reject proposals for infrastructure developments and runway enhancement at Staverton Airport .

Yours sincerely,
Kevin Lister