Introducing environmental decision making

Introduction

We all make decisions in everyday life, both as individuals and in groups. These range from simple – for example, choosing what to eat, which route to take to work, which products to buy in the shop – to complex decisions about changing jobs, moving house, choosing schools and participating as a member of a local community in planning decisions and improvements.

What processes do we go through in making these decisions about different possible courses of action? Are they the same every time? Are they the same for everyone?

Just as there are different types of decision, there are also different approaches to decision making that are relevant in different circumstances.

Some decisions are made rationally and logically, while others are made more instinctively or less consciously, sometimes based on the smooth performance of a practised skill. Yet others appear not to be made intentionally at all, but are dictated by sudden changes in knowledge or circumstances – for example, when trying to decide between one route and another and finding that one way is blocked. In practice, other options may still be available but it appears as though the decision has been made for you. Variation in choice may also mean that one person has a decision to make and another does not. (My examples, above, of choosing what to eat or buy assume that I have a choice.)

Individuals and groups also have different preferences for how they make decisions and articulate what they do. Decision making is, at times, such a dynamic process that it can be difficult to tell whether a decision is being made or not. Whether we are directly involved in decision making (and in what capacity) or how we are affected by decisions others appear to have made, also affects our perspectives on decision making.

This OpenLearn course provides a sample of level 3 study in Environment & Development

Learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• recognise and explain some different approaches to decision making

• recognise and explain some major factors that influence decision making

• recognise and explain what is understood by environmental decision making and several key concepts that are relevant to it

• recognise and explain how to identify some environmental issues that are of interest or concern and explain why

• recognise and explain what the authors of the course mean by a system, its boundary and environment.

1 Introduction to decision making

1.1 Approaches to decision making

Think about some of the decision-making processes in which you have been involved. Do you recognise any of the following four approaches to decision making?

In practice, most decision making involves a combination of approaches. So, why are people not completely rational in their decision making? James March in another paper, ‘Limited rationality’ (1994), claims that although decision makers try to be rational, in a particular context, they are constrained by limited cognitive capabilities and incomplete information, so although they often intend to be rational, their actions are often less than rational. Not being entirely rational is just part of being human! In this paper, March does not discuss the role of emotions in affecting rationality in decision making but he has written on this topic elsewhere (March 1978). There is a lot of literature on emotion and decision making related to understanding human cognition (the mental process of knowing and developing knowledge) and what motivates human behaviour, particularly in the areas of medical decision making and psychology (e.g. Schwarz (2000) and Ubel (2005)).

1.2 Factors that influence decisions

Now that these different approaches to decision making have been considered it is possible to extract a number of linked factors that influence decisions:

1. The decision makers
2. The decision situation
3. Thinking in terms of a problem or an opportunity
4. Decision criteria
5. Time
6. People affected by the decision
7. Decision support – theories, tools and techniques.

Let us briefly consider each of these factors in turn.

4 Decision criteria

The criteria that are established and used to evaluate alternative courses of action in decision making will certainly affect the outcome of a decision. Different criteria will be appropriate in different situations but are often needed both to help make a decision and to make apparent the basis on which it is made.

In group decision making, exploring and deciding on criteria is one way of developing a shared understanding of a situation. Different decision makers with different beliefs and values are likely to identify different criteria and give a different weighting to them (see Figure 1). For example, finding an option for a new housing site that will satisfy (a ‘good’ decision) or at least satisfice (an ‘adequate’ or ‘goodenough’ decision) all those involved will usually mean compromises or trade-offs.

Specific criteria can help to identify areas where there is agreement and disagreement. Criteria for the new housing site might include, for example, how existing land use is valued and by whom, services and housing provision available in the vicinity, likely disturbance or enhancement of the area and implications for road safety. There will be different views on what is acceptable for each of these aspects and often a need for negotiation. Criteria such as these are frequently worked out at different levels, as part of the regional as well as more local planning processes.

The New Yorker Magazine

Figure 1 “That makes four ‘Yes’es and one ‘No, no, a thousand times no.’”

1.3 Decision making and policy making

Decision making is such an integral part of most people’s everyday lives that it is sometimes difficult to tell where decision making starts and ends.

An activity closely allied to decision making, yet different, is policy making. Policies are plans, courses of action or procedures that are intended to influence decisions. As such, they form part of the context for decision making, often providing guiding principles. But decision making is also a part of policy making and there is a dynamic relationship between decision making and policy making.

These two activities differ mainly in their purposes. A decision will usually be specific to a situation, even though it will be linked to other decisions in other situations. A policy however may apply more generically. Why does this difference matter? It matters when a decision made in one situation sets a precedent that may become a ‘de facto’ policy.

Examples where this has happened can be found in planning processes where precedents set are taken into account when appeals are made regarding granting planning permission. De facto policy also applies in some countries regarding prosecution of small scale polluters, where it is not practical to implement environmental legislation in a literal sense in all cases. Developing policy for dealing with diffuse pollution (i.e. from multiple sources) within water catchments is an example where decision making interacts with policy making. Problems of diffuse pollution are widespread, and where practical ways of improving diffuse pollution situations have been found, these have influenced policy options.

2 What do we mean by environmental decision making?

2.1 Concepts of environment

The way in which our environment is perceived is central to the way in which we approach environmental decision making, so the concept of environment will be explored iteratively in this course. At this stage, I simply want to introduce the concept, to encourage you to be critical of how the term is used and to explain the way the term will be used.

The words ‘environment’ and ‘environmental’ appear a lot in everyday language. For instance I picked out reference to the environment, learning environments, the business environment, my home environment and environmental schemes in a couple of magazines I was reading recently. But in going on to read the articles in which those words appeared it became clear that those terms had little in common beyond a generic meaning of ‘contexts’ or ‘surroundings’ .

David Cooper (1992) contrasted a distended notion of environment, where each person’s environmental concern is supposed to extend everywhere ‘from street corner to stratosphere’, with the idea of a ‘milieu’ in which a person belongs and which they make their own. Their environmental concerns will begin ‘at home’ with their environments and the networks of meanings with which they are daily engaged.

In doing Activity 4 and Activity 5 you will have encountered some different ideas about what constitutes ‘environment’ and ‘environmental’ and thought a little about what the terms mean to you and what aspects interest or concern you. But how will these terms be used throughout this course?

The environment of an entity can usually be described as that which surrounds it, affects it and in most cases is affected by it. The entity concerned may refer to an individual (as in my environment) or a group of living and/or non-living things (as in an organisation’s environment). Used in its narrow and ‘natural’ sense ‘the environment’ often refers to our biophysical surroundings. But humans are part of nature. People are in continuous interaction with their environment as they depend directly or indirectly on it for food, water, air and shelter for their very existence. It is our life-support system and at times its physical elements will be part of us. As well as sharing our environment with other people, we share it with other living things (both animals and plants) on which we depend.

However, the relationship between people and their environment has many dimensions – physical, biological, social, psychological, emotional, economic, even temporal – in terms of how we are currently affected by past decisions and how our decisions will affect us and other generations in the future. This unit will generally use ‘environment’ in this broad sense acknowledging its many dimensions.

One useful way of representing the relationships between entities and their environment is to use a diagram – in this next case a systems map. Click on the following link to view a PDF on this diagramming technique.

Figure 2 uses systems maps to represent some different interpretations of the word environment and to experiment with boundaries. It is deliberately in draft form as it is trying to capture and represent a series of ideas about the concept of environment, from different perspectives, rather than showing a situation at a particular moment in time or a single system of interest, which would have a clear whole system boundary.

Figure 2 A series of draft systems maps, showing different relationships inherent in different definitions of environment (a) The general idea of environment as whatever surrounds something (b) Humans as part of society, which has a natural system in its general environment (c) Humans as part of a social system, operating within a general biophysical environment (d) Humans as part of social, economic and biophysical systems, within a general environment

There is much criticism of anthropocentric (human-centred) definitions of ‘the environment’ because they emphasise its utility value to people rather than recognising it has value in its own right (i.e. intrinsic or inherent value). These definitions also fail to recognise the way in which people are always in their environment not able to be separated from it. Human-centred definitions are also often thought to imply control by humans of physical and biological processes that we cannot control. They also fail to acknowledge the many feedback loops in our relationship with our environment. However, humans exist in societies, most of which use technology, and we certainly have the ability to affect some natural processes in our use of that technology, depending on how we choose to use it. For example, temperature, rainfall, sea levels and the composition of the atmosphere have all been affected by people’ s activities, such as burning fossil fuels for energy and transport or changing land use. Our use of ‘green’ technology, e.g. for renewable energy, might have less effect on natural processes, depending on how it is used (Figure 3).

© Photofusion

Figure 3 People’s activities affect natural processes

There are many possible choices about how we live and these choices are not simple to make, not least because the organisation of human societies is experienced by many as complex. Humans also affect and are affected by their environments just by living – breathing, eating, drinking, producing wastes, etc. – not only in their use of technology. In order to understand better the effects of our decisions and actions and how we might make necessary changes there is therefore a need to focus on what surrounds and affects humans, as well as their relationships with their environments. But it is important to keep in mind that there are many definitions of ‘the environment’ and to recognise that there are limits to what humans control (Figure 4).

(a) Carsten Peter/National Geographic Image Collection, (b) © Reuters/NOAA

Figure 4 ‘There are limits to what humans control’ (a) Sicily’ s Mount Etna erupting in 2002 (b) A satellite image of Hurricane Katrina taken on 29 August 2005 as it passed through the USA Gulf Coast

2.2 Environment and system

We have already used the word ‘system’ in this unit several times. The word system is used extensively in our 21st Century vocabulary. For instance we refer to ‘the transport system’ or ‘a home entertainment system’ in a general way, not being specific about what we mean by system. Figure 2 used draft systems maps to explore some of the relationships in different definitions of ‘environment’. It shows ‘systems’, their sub-systems and their boundaries with the system’s environments. In experimenting with these diagrams we used the term ‘system’ in a different way from the general sense, to think in terms of systems. For now, you should note that it was possible to focus on some different systems, boundaries and environments in the different definitions, even though they started with the same word. Consider these further examples of systems from Sir Geoffrey Vickers, who was thinking of a school as a system:

A system is not a fixed entity but the boundaries are identified by the observer and linked to purpose. Using the idea of a system raises some challenges for our use of the term ‘environment’. Identifying the school’ s environment, if thinking of a school as a system, becomes a specific exercise of judging what lies within the system and what lies in its environment and the boundary between the two will vary with the observer’ s perceptions and articulation of the system’ s purpose.

Systems concepts and techniques have been found useful by many for identifying what is relevant in a particular situation and what may be changed. They are an essential part of this course and using the concept of system/boundary and environment is at its core.

In general terms there are some simple principles implicit in the idea of a system:

• A system is an assembly of components connected together in an organised way.
• The components are affected by being in the system and are changed if they leave it.
• The assembly of components does something.
• The system has been identified by someone as being of interest.

2.3 Characterising environmental decisions

Ken Sexton and his colleagues wrote a book called Better Environmental Decisions – Strategies for Governments, Businesses and Communities (Sexton et al., 1999) in which they characterise environmental decisions (see Table 2). They had a particular purpose in mind in doing this:

They structured their table around six dimensions:

1. At what social level does the environmental decision occur?
2. What are the important substantive aspects of the environmental decision?
3. What is the social setting for the environmental decision?
4. What is the mode of environmental decision making?
5. What are the assumptions about underlying causes of the environmental problem?
6. What criteria are used to evaluate the environmental decision?

suggesting that

2.4 Environmental decision making in the context of sustainable development

In simple terms, environmental decision making is taken to mean decision making that has an effect on our environment, however it is defined. If adopting a broad definition of environment, it could be said that nearly all decision making comes into this category. So why do we need to talk about environmental decision making at all rather than simply decision making? It is because there is increasing recognition that many of the decisions we make and actions we take, both individually and in groups, have an effect on our environment and yet economic and political considerations often dominate in a way that seems to exclude environmental considerations. By environmental in this context, I mean that which surrounds and affects us including our physical and biological life-support base alongside social, economic, cultural, political and institutional factors.

We are mainly taking into consideration those decisions which have local dimensions but are related to worldwide environmental issues, and where individuals and groups have choices they can make to maximise positive environmental outcomes, improve our environment and limit detrimental effects. Examples include our use of transport, making consumer decisions, planning new or improved developments and managing natural resources.

Whilst accepting that there are widely divergent views about what environmental decision making implies, we believe that the main challenge seems to be not one of replacing economic, political and social considerations, which currently prevail in much decision making, with an environmental agenda but one of bringing these factors together in every decision-making process. A note of caution is needed however: singling out one area for special attention might on occasions have the effect of separation rather than integration. In order that we might more fully explore this integration of environment with the other factors prevalent in decision making, we perhaps need to begin by taking the position that we cannot afford to exclude environmental concerns if we are to meet basic human needs both now and in the future. This is based on an assumption that the rate at which we are using some of our natural resources (such as oil, water or land) and polluting air, soil, fresh waters and oceans is unsustainable. Hence we will consider environmental decision making in the context of sustainable development and will now go on to explore what that means.

2.5 Sustainable development

2.5.1 Development

‘Development’ is another term that is used frequently in the context of environmental decision making. Like the term ‘environment’, it is a word that has many different meanings and understandings. One of its original meanings was as a biological notion synonymous with the natural progression of growth and differentiation to a stage of maturity. We will use it in several different ways:

• In a general sense, to denote progress or the gradual unfolding and filling out, usually used in a positive sense. For example, ‘the development of a proposal’ or the ‘personal development of an individual’.
• To refer to plans. Development plans, which often refer to built structures, have come to have a specific meaning and connotations because in many countries they are subject to legislation and regulation. For example, in the UK development plans are covered in a range of planning acts, regulations and guidance documents including The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, The Town and Country Planning (Local Development) (England) Regulations 2004 and The Town and Country Planning (Transitional Arrangements) Regulations 2004 and Planning Policy Statement 12 (PPS12): ‘Local Development Frameworks’ 2004.
• To describe particular site-based infrastructural projects, such as roads, buildings and dams, in the sense of ‘new developments’ or redevelopments.
• To refer to ‘world’ development, where there is also a range of different perspectives:

In the context of environmental decision making, the term ‘development’ is often used with the adjective ‘sustainable’.

2.5.2 Sustainable development

Several events in the 1970s and 1980s emphasised the global nature of environmental issues and the links between environment and development, which in turn led to the emergence of the concept of sustainable development. These events included:

• the production of the World Conservation Strategy in 1980 (by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP);
• the Brandt Commission on North/South relationships, chaired by the former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, which reported in 1983;
• the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), which produced the report ‘Our Common Future’ in 1987 – also known as the Brundtland Commission, after Gro Harlem Brundtland, the then Prime Minister of Norway, who chaired the Commission. The Brundtland definition of sustainable development became particularly well known:

This definition embraces at least three concepts that can be interpreted differently by different individuals: those of development, needs and intergenerational equity.

There have been many more definitions of sustainable development suggested since 1987. Figure 5 is a diagrammatic representation of one that came from the US National Research Council, Policy Division in 1999 (reproduced in Kates et al., 2005).

U.S. National Research Council

Figure 5 Definitions of sustainable development

The ‘linked by’ section in Figure 5 refers to the different emphases in combining what is to be sustained with what is to be developed ranging from ‘sustain only’ or ‘develop mostly’ to combinations of what is to be sustained and developed using words such as but, and/or.

However it is defined, sustainable development is a concept that has been in use since the mid 1980s and is still very much in evidence. Many people have at least partially accepted it, as was shown by the work done before, during and after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) – the Earth Summit – in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg. (Both of these initiatives will be discussed later in this section.)

Does it matter that the concept of sustainable development is open to interpretation? Is it important that people share an understanding of this concept or is it more a question of how people use it? Some people consider sustainable development to be a rather vague ideal with implications we have yet to understand, while others have used it to develop clear plans of action with achievable goals.

Here is one view from Sir Martin Holdgate when he addressed the UK Royal Society of Arts in 1995 in his role as President of the Zoological Society:

Here is another view from Wendy Harcourt from her book Feminist Perspectives on Sustainable Development:

Activity 9 Raising questions about sustainable development

Now use your answers to Activity 7 and Activity 8 to focus on those aspects of sustainable development that raise questions for you so that you can pursue them later on. Use one or more spray diagrams to help you clarify, organise and develop your thinking. If you have not used spray diagrams before, first read through Box 1 and then follow the guidelines in the PDF below.

View document

Discussion

Maximise

Figure 6 Spray diagrams in response to Activity 9

2.5.3 United Nations initiatives for sustainable development and decision making

Out of UNCED emerged conventions on climate change and biodiversity, a set of guidelines of forest principles, a declaration on Environment and Development, and an extensive international agenda for action for sustainable development for the 21st Century – Agenda 21. From WSSD came reaffirmed commitment to sustainable development, including a declaration that committed to ‘a collective responsibility to advance and strengthen the interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development – economic development, social development and environmental protection – at local, national and global levels’ (the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development, 4 September 2002). WSSD also produced a plan of implementation. Between these two international Summits came the UN’ s Millennium Summit when Heads of State adopted a series of goals with targets concerning peace, development, environment, human rights, the vulnerable, hungry and poor, Africa and the United Nations.

These initiatives are inter-related and each has built on what had been done before. Their significance for environmental decision making is that, in common with some other international initiatives, they have attempted to address issues that cannot be addressed at just one level (local, national or regional). National-level programmes (e.g. Local Agenda 21 (LA21) programmes) have been linked to the international level. In all three of the UN Summit processes, concerns about and recommendations for decision making were included.

Agenda 21 was developed well over a decade ago, for UNCED in 1992 (Quarrie, 1992), but it had a long-term horizon with targets for implementation and monitoring of progress and dealing with changing priorities that took place through the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. It therefore became an ongoing process and although the language of Agenda 21 is less in evidence now than it was in the 1990s many of the principles and agreements reached in the Agenda 21 process are still relevant.

Agenda 21 was published in some 40 chapters, each presented with a basis for action, objectives, activities and an estimate of financial costs. It had four main focuses:

1. Social and economic dimensions
2. Conservation and management of resources for development
3. Strengthening the role of major (stakeholder) groups
4. Means of implementation

Two chapters to note in the context of this course are:

• Chapter 8, ‘Integrating environment and development in decision making’, which considers integrating environment and development at the policy and management levels, providing an effective legal and regulatory framework, making effective use of economic instruments and market and other incentives, and establishing systems for integrated environmental and economic accounting.
• Chapter 40, ‘Information for decision making’ , which considers bridging the data gap between the so-called ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds, and improving availability of information that could be used for the management of sustainable development.

After UNCED the many recommendations in Agenda 21 were taken up in varying degrees. There was a series of issues around implementation ranging from finance to participation. However, many people worldwide were involved in the overall process of Agenda 21 and it has been a major focus in many different countries for a great deal of activity on environment and development. LA21 programmes were developed in several countries.

In September 2000, at the UN Millennium Summit, 147 Heads of State and Government agreed to a set of development goals, with targets, for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women. These goals became known as the Millennium Development Goals (see Box 2).

A further plan of implementation of action for targeting specific areas of sustainable development emerged from the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002.

From the Johannesburg WSSD process came a range of outcomes including:

An explicit reference to decision making was made in the Johannesburg Declaration:

Decision-making processes, including environmental decision making, are implicit in ideas of public– private and other multi-agency partnerships which are mentioned both in the Millennium and the Johannesburg Declarations. As ‘Ensuring environmental sustainability’ is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (see Box 2), environmental decision making is also implicit.

How does environmental decision making link up with decision making for sustainable development? Are they the same thing? The short answer is ‘No’. For example, a social services department might decide to use more transport to allow more people to have access to basic services. This decision may be in direct conflict with their stated environmental aims to reduce transport-related emissions and yet it is in some ways a sustainable development improvement. This single decision is focused more on social sustainability than environmental sustainability. However, a social services department committed to sustainable development might, as a whole, make a series of trade-offs between environmental, social and economic considerations, so it is misleading to consider the single decision out of context.

I mentioned previously that the focus on environmental decision making in this course is to ensure that environmental considerations are not forgotten. However, I also pointed out the need to integrate environmental, social and economic considerations. In some cases this means that decisions can be made that have positive effects in all three of these areas, such as the win– win situation of an environmental business that provides employment. In other situations it means choices between one aspect and another, involving trade-offs, as in the example of the social services department. Sustainable development is the context for environmental decision making.

In some cases, LA21 programmes were adopted by governments, authorities and organisations that had already developed environmental policies and plans. For instance, nearly all UK local authorities produced LA21 strategies by the end of 2000, although they did vary in form and quality (Webster, 1999). The process they have had to go through to change course from a focus on environment to one on sustainable development has generally been one of moving out boundaries to include a broader range of both people and ideas in decision making. The UK Local Government Act 2000 meant that UK local authorities had a duty to promote economic, social and environmental well-being and sustainable development of their areas in their community planning although they did not have the power to raise money specifically for this activity. Environmental decision making can take place within the context of sustainable development. The process needs to start with groups of people thinking critically and systemically and working out what is relevant in a particular situation, rather than trying to think about everything at once.

The way that the use of the sustainable development concept has brought people with environmental, social, political and economic agenda into the same forums for discussion and action is a very important part of the context of environmental decision making.

3 Values, power and evolving discourse in environmental decision making

3.1 The importance of values

The values of decision makers were briefly mentioned in previously in the unit as a factor that influences decisions. Value is used here not in its numerical sense, but to mean something that an individual or group regards as something good that gives meaning to life. Values can also be thought of as deeply held views, of what we find worthwhile. They come from many sources: parents, religion, schools, peers, people we admire and culture. Examples of values an individual may hold are those associated with: creativity, honesty, money, nature, working with others.

Values that affect decision making may be collective as well as individual. The following set of values has been identified by a collective process as those underpinning the United Nations Millennium Declaration. They are clearly thought by a group of people, not just an individual, to be important.

The ways in which values affect decision making can be highly variable. Two people or organisations who espouse the same value such as say ‘shared responsibility’ may mean quite different things by it and it is common for differences in values to surface in the process of judgement or negotiation rather than in high-level discussions. In environmental decision making, in the context of sustainable development values associated with money may sometimes conflict with other approaches. The case study later in this block provides a good example. The ‘costs’ of aircraft emissions and noise are considered by many to be more than monetary.

Value judgments often lie behind our approaches to decision making. Deciding what to keep, throw away or destroy for instance, whether at an individual or collective level is a process affected by values. Value judgements may become part of a rational process if values are made explicit and at other times may appear to limit rationality, particularly when not made explicit. For instance, someone who explicitly values participatory governance would be expected to pay a lot of attention to who participates in a decision-making process and how. In a rational choice approach to decision making they would explicitly include these aspects in their consideration of a situation. On the other hand, someone who holds this value but does not make it explicit may be perceived as trying to extend or hold up a decision-making process by trying to include more opportunities for participation in less overt ways.

3.2 Power relations and sources within decision making

A lot of conceptions of decision making include ideas about power relations. For instance John Heron (1989) identifies three levels of power to be consciously recognised in the process of project or activity design:

1. Hierarchical, with ‘power over’ leading to ‘deciding for’;
2. Cooperative, or ‘power with’, leading to ‘deciding with’;
3. Autonomous, or ‘power to’, leading to ‘delegating deciding to’;

Of course there are many issues associated with each of these categories, for instance in how a process of delegation may be experienced. But the idea is one of an increasingly ‘bottom up’ rather than ‘top down’ approach. One outcome of a ‘power to’ level of power may just be that stakeholders can get on with work or activity rather than waiting for someone else to decide. The previous unit discussed some situations where power relations need to be considered in decision making. The two examples mentioned were how or whether people affected by a decision, such as one about a new development, can use their power to influence a decision and how people skilled at using a model use the power associated with their skill (e.g. to explore a context with others or to persuade others to take a particular point of view). Another example is one where some people have more access to and control of information than others because of their role or position. Heron’s categorisation could be used to consider each case to consider the power relations among stakeholders.

But where does power come from and how can it be generated in constructive ways? Ideas of power sharing or delegating (or not) often appear in news stories, particularly in relation to politics. Do they imply that there is only so much power to go round? Some ideas that may answer these questions come from Gary Klein, who wrote a book called Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions (1998). Klein wrote this book to try and balance other books that concentrated on the limitations rather than the abilities of decision makers, particularly in difficult conditions. He had done a first study on how fire-fighters make life and death decisions under extreme time pressure and many subsequent studies (including pilots, nurses, military leaders, nuclear power plant operators) as part of a tradition of ‘naturalistic decision making’ where how people use their experience to make decisions in field settings is considered. Klein and his colleagues found that

The criteria for Klein’s ‘naturalistic decision-making settings’ followed those identified by Orasanu and Connolly (1993), i.e. time pressure, high stakes, experienced decision makers, inadequate information, ill-defined goals, poorly defined procedures, cue learning (where patterns are perceived or distinctions made that lead to a next stage), performed within a context of higher-level goals and different tasks with their own requirements, dynamic conditions and team co-ordination.

The diagram below captures some of the ideas that Klein explored.

(Klein, G, 1998)

Figure 7 Sources of power

Klein has written a full book about these sources of power and I cannot hope to capture the richness of that book here. However his diagram, Figure 1, can be thought of as a ‘rich picture’, particularly if considered with his explanation of why he has drawn the diagram the way he has:

In terms of John Heron’s three levels of power mentioned at the start of this section, Klein’s work is mainly about the autonomous level of power. Many people may be able to draw on, for instance, the power of intuition, storytelling or metaphor to gain insights into a situation. But if working in a hierarchical or even a cooperative context, where power is derived from position or reputation, they may not be able to act to improve the situation.

(www.cartoonstock.com)

Figure 8 ‘VIP parking only’

3.3 Evolving discourses concerning environmental decision making and sustainable development

What is valued by people and how they think of power relations is often evident in their discourse. A discourse is described by John Dryzek (1997) as ‘a shared way of apprehending the world. Embedded in language, it enables those who subscribe to it to interpret bits of information and put them together into coherent stories or accounts’. Discourses change over time as new knowledge and understanding is developed. Individuals also move on to take part in different discourses. For example, from the perspectives of many, the prevailing discourse concerning the relationship of humans with their environments has changed from one of ‘mastery over nature’ to recognition of the role of people’s activities in global warming and depletion of natural resources and the need to manage wastes.

Dryzek developed the following checklist of elements for the analysis of discourses (Dryzek, 1997, p. 18):

1. Basic entities recognised or constructed;
2. Assumptions about natural relationships;
3. Agents and their motives;
4. Key metaphors and other rhetorical devices.

Dryzek’s category of ‘basic entities’ acknowledges that different discourses recognise or construct different things in the world. For instance, according to Dryzek, some discourses recognise ‘ecosystems’, some do not. Assumptions about natural relationships refer to notions of what is natural in the relationships between different entities, e.g. some see competition or cooperation or hierarchies as natural. Agents and their motives refers to both individuals and collectives, mostly human but in some discourses also non-human. Key metaphors and other rhetorical devices are used to refer to one thing in terms of another to put a situation in a particular light.

For instance referring to ‘Spaceship Earth’ or the ‘war against nature’ uses the terms ‘spaceship’ and ‘war’ metaphorically rather than literally, possibly to invoke a particular image to convince listeners.

Dryzek identified environmental discourses around:

• (i) global limits and their denial;
• (ii) solving environmental problems;
• (iii) the quest for sustainability; and (iv) green radicalism.

All are relevant to environmental decision making in different ways. For example, he introduced his analysis of ‘survivalism’ which was a discourse identified in the ‘global limits and their denial’ in the following way:

Dryzek went on to explain in detail the elements that were part of the story line. He also summarised them (Table 3), which, with a few notes, is sufficient for our purpose here:

Dryzek describes the elements in this survivalism discourse, as well as listing them in a table. In the summary regarding basic entities, stocks of non-renewable resources (such as oil, coal, etc.) and the capacity of ecosystems to produce renewable resources (such as timber and fish) are treated as finite. The term ‘population’ rather than people is used to make a point about the aggregate entity, and elites such as governments, modellers, etc. play a central role. In terms of assumptions, there is an assumption that natural relationships are hierarchical and that they can be controlled. In terms of agents, the elites have the capacity to act. Key metaphors and rhetorical devices include ‘overshoot and collapse’, which refers to population growth of one species at a time (taken from models of the dynamics of simple ecosystems). ‘Commons’ refers to how we deal with shared resources such as air or fish stocks and to the work of Garrett Hardin (1968) on ‘the tragedy of the commons’. ‘Spaceship Earth’ is a metaphor first coined by Kenneth Boulding in 1966, likening the earth to a spaceship, a whole system. The ‘lily pond’ and ‘cancer’ metaphors are linked to ideas of rapid population growth. The ‘computer’ is an old-fashioned metaphor now for enhanced ability to carry out complex calculations in modelling.

Further details of this environmental discourse and others are given in Dryzek’s book.

As mentioned above, this example is just one of many, but it is a useful reminder that our assumptions in or around a discourse can vary a great deal, and it seems reasonable to assume that the nature of the discourse will affect what and who we see as significant in a decision-making process.

An analysis of a broader range of discourses concerning approaches to sustainable development has been prepared by Bill Hopwood, Mary Mellor and Geoff O’Brien of the Sustainable Cities Research Institute at the University of Northumbria in the UK (Hopwood et al., 2005).

This paper includes a detailed discussion on what the authors see as the major trends within sustainable development and more extensive conclusions. While the main topic of the paper is sustainable development, it is also highly relevant for understanding discourse on environmental decision making. For instance, the authors analyse and suggest positions for different levels of environmental concern and explicitly consider decision making in the context of sustainable development. They also question what may or may not need to change and the tools and actors needed for these changes to take place.

4 Your experience of decision making and environmental decision making

4.1 Becoming aware of your actual and potential environmental decision making

In this section you will begin to locate yourself within the overall context of environmental decision making. By considering critically your own experiences of environmental issues in different contexts and at different levels you will begin to consider how people’s experiences influence their decisions and actions and how this can be used to positive effect – a theme that will recur throughout the course. Try the following activity now to begin taking stock of your own environmental decision-making experience.

As individuals it is difficult to understand the nature and scale of the impacts of our decisions, and what we should do about these impacts, because they are part of a large and complex web of interconnected decisions and actions. It is also sometimes dif. cult to see how the actions of one individual can make a difference, particularly when decision-making processes seem remote and there seems little opportunity to get involved. Figure 9, which shows some factors affecting traffic growth, provides an example.

Nearly all decisions are made by individuals, even when in groups or organisations. We also have multiple roles in society where we are involved in environmental decision making, as consumers, citizens, parents, workers and voters (though not always with awareness), so our decisions and actions can and do make a difference. There are more opportunities to get directly involved in environmental decision making than many people think, although they are not always apparent. The traffic growth example in Figure 9 for instance suggests to me that if I wanted to affect the situation, I could consider how I might, with others, encourage investment in public transport and get involved in improving town planning, as well as reconsidering my own car ownership and avoiding congested times for traffic.

Figure 9 A multiple cause diagram of some factors affecting traffic growth

4.2 Different levels of decision making

We make decisions and take actions at a range of different levels: on our own, and within families, communities, nations and international regions. The concept of levels can be useful in working out where decisions are made or should be made.

An example is provided by Norman Uphoff (1992) when considering the types of local institution involved in development activity. See Figure 4.

(Uphoff, 1992)

Figure 10 Ten levels of decision making and activity

The unshaded area in Uphoff’s diagram communicates what he means by local institutions. He has drawn conceptual boundaries around ten different levels where decision making and action can occur, ranging from individual to international. By naming and describing the levels he can communicate his understanding to others. He also challenges the way many people use the word local by constructing a boundary around three of the levels – the locality, community and group levels. The distinction is important because, for example, the involvement of local-level institutions is recognised (by Uphoff and others) as essential for mobilising resources and helping to resolve resource management conflicts. Involving just one of the three local levels for decision making may well mean that opportunities to reach a wider constituency are missed. Since this diagram was developed, others (e.g. Buckingham-Hatfield and Percy, 1999) have come forward with even wider understandings of localism. So reaching people at the local level clearly has different meaning for different people.

Uphoff’s diagram is being presented here out of context. He went on to give much more descriptive detail and examples of what he meant by the levels in his diagram. He had a particular perspective in that he was writing about local institutions and participation for sustainable development and considering the roles of different organisations and institutions and their effectiveness for natural resource management. The diagram is not necessarily appropriate for all organisations and institutions, particularly where they operate at many different levels. For example, it would be difficult to place a self-identified group of people with some common interest from within one organisation which had several sites (though care is needed in ascribing a perspective to a group as there is likely to be variation within it). Individuals might in that case come from different geographical locations. The group might be predominantly ‘local’ but the organisation ‘regional’ or ‘national’. However, diagrams can be useful in different ways and Uphoff’s diagram is a valuable prompt for considering different levels of environmental decision making.

One final point on levels before we leave this section. There is a difference between the level at which we make decisions and the level at which the effects of our decisions are evident. For example, our local decisions to purchase timber products or burn fossil fuels may have an impact at several different levels, from local to global.

4.3 Recognising change and learning in decision situations

Decision situations are constantly changing; they are usually dynamic not static. Data on biological and physical processes and human activity, and statements about action being taken to address environmental issues, are obtained at a particular time and in a particular context. Keep in mind that there is a need for caution in interpreting data or statements that originated in a different context or era. Another aspect of change in decision situations concerns learning.

Experiential learning

Have you ever read a book about a place you have never visited that has meant little to you but returned to the book later after going there to find it meant something quite different?

The same principle can apply when trying to understand the context of your environmental decisions. Accounts of what is happening might well be available but you do not fully understand them. We learn from our own experiences. It is difficult to identify with a problem or an opportunity unless you have experienced some part of it yourself. For example, we can all identify with some activities that have an effect on our environment, such as transport and use of packaging, because we have at least a consumer’s perspective. But our experiences may well be very different. For example, people whose livelihood is connected with the transport or food sector are likely to identify with them even more strongly. Identifying with the problem or opportunity is a step towards ‘owning’ it, but this does not always happen if people do not recognise it as ‘their’ problem. Recognising that we learn from our experiences is particularly important in environmental decision making because our experiences affect the way we think about a situation, which in turn influences our decisions and actions. This type of learning is an iterative, or recurring, process as illustrated in Figure 11.

Figure 11 Experiential learning cycle

The experiential learning cycle is just one model of how we learn. This version is adapted to show the place of ‘decisions’ in the cycle. The original experiential learning cycle was developed by David Kolb and Roger Fry in 1975 (Kolb and Fry, 1975; Kolb, 1984), building on the work of Kurt Lewin, who is better known for his work on action research. As with any model, there are assumptions embedded within it, for instance that the activities identified are the only ones involved in experiential learning and in the order of activities. Other theories of learning have identified other processes. Changes in behaviour, changes in a learner and changes in learners’ relationships with others and/or their environments may all provide evidence of learning depending on how learning is theorised (Brockbank and McGill, 1998).

The cumulative environmental impact of individual decisions is often very large, so while each individual’s effect may in itself be small, it is still a contributory factor. It is important for all those involved to take responsibility for their actions. In understanding environmental decision making, it is also important to recognise the need to learn and make decisions in groups as well as individually. To be able to do this we need to listen to and try to understand different perspectives as well as just considering our own.

In the context of environmental decision making, learning what changes to make and how at both individual and social levels is important.

5 ‘Freedom to fly?’ A case study in aviation expansion

5.1 Introduction

This unit takes you through a case study in airport expansion. The aim here is to describe the decision-making process regarding airport expansion with a specific focus on the UK government’s December 2003 ‘Future of Air Transport’ White Paper (DfT, 2003a). From now on I will refer to this as the ‘Aviation White Paper’. This will allow you to engage with a ‘real life’ decision-making situation with environmental issues at its heart. The case study will provide you with an outline of the sequence of events and an interpretation of how they came about. Keep in mind, though, that its purpose is not to teach you about aviation and air transport but to provide you with a rich and complex example of an environmental decision-making process. Take care not to get side-tracked by delving too much into the detail of the case study material.

The principal narrative of this case study is presented as text, but this is supported with multimedia resources, including audio and video programmes, digital text, graphs and maps. The text is illustrated with cartoons by Vicky Thompson, a freelance artist. Vicky was asked to engage with the text of the case study, and produced an immediate, intuitive visual response.

5.1.1 The case study

I readily volunteered to write this case study because of my personal stake in aviation, living only 15 minutes away from Heathrow Airport in the South East of England, and often jumping at any chance to get out of this relatively cold and wet country (and then enjoying my guilty conscience at leisure on some hot tropical beach). I have to confess that I have only recently begun to take the environmental impacts of aviation seriously. The car was, and probably still is, the environmentalist’s transport enemy number one. But the enormous expansion in air travel within the last half of the 20th century, almost doubling every ten years, and the sustained expansion forecast for the first half of the 21st century (see Figure 12) means that major environmental impacts will no longer be limited to the surroundings of international airports. As I write this in 2005, there are over 18,000 commercial aircraft providing in excess of 3 billion passenger kilometres between 1192 airports worldwide. Yet, only 5% of the world’s population has ever flown. Reductions in costs and the expansion of airport capacity will allow a significantly greater proportion of the world’s population to fly. But at what cost to the environment and to the well-being of those living near airports? Is it time to limit people’s freedom to fly?

(ICAO, 2000)

Figure 12 World annual air passenger traffic growth and forecast represented as ‘passenger kilometres’ (the number of passengers multiplied by the distance of their particular journey). The ‘Middle Case Forecast’ is the average estimate of growth

Aviation is one of the most environmentally damaging modes of transport at our disposal today. It contributes to greenhouse gas emissions that are generally accepted as causing global warming. It can adversely affect those living near airports (both in terms of noise and air quality) with many airport workers, especially those in the developing world where health and safety regulations are not as strict and/or implemented, being exposed to toxic levels of exhaust fumes and vaporised fuel chemicals. Airports produce a significant amount of solid and liquid waste and are a drain on surrounding natural resources such as water. But this perspective focuses just on the environmental impacts of aviation. Taking a different perspective, there are significant social and economic benefits. Many people love exotic holidays in far away places, and buy products flown all the way from the other side of the world. Business people in the ‘global economy’ need to meet face-to-face to clinch deals. And the millions of people employed by the worldwide aviation industry and the associated industries, such as tourism, appreciate the money they receive as a result. The socio-economic demands are such that, if unconstrained, aviation in the UK alone is forecast to double in the next 30 years.

Airport expansion is now a major local issue (for those living near airports) and a global issue (as a result of its increasing contribution to climate change). The authors of this unit felt that aviation and airport expansion was a good example of a complex, interconnected decision-making situation. But the subject is vast, and in order to provide an example case study with sufficient depth and a clear boundary, we have focused on the decision-making process leading up to the ‘Aviation White Paper’, a strategy paper published by the UK government (terms like ‘white paper’ and other aspects of the UK government’s legislative process are explained in Box 5 in Section 5.3). My account of the ‘Aviation White Paper’ process explores a major event in recent history with environmental decision making at its heart. The paper aimed to set out a strategy for airport expansion in the UK for the next 30 years, while taking into account the environmental impact of expansion.

This activity may help to demonstrate what your personal stake is in aviation. But your decision to fly and/or buy flown-in goods, and the constraints that may limit your flying, are not isolated. They are helped and hindered by other decisions made by other fellow travellers (friends, colleagues, employers), airline companies, airport operators, travel agencies, industries dependent on air transport, environmental nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), specialist consultants and a multitude of government departments, to name a few influential stakeholders in air travel. My interpretation of the ‘Aviation White Paper’ focuses on the process created by the UK government and how the voices of the various stakeholders have been represented (or not).

5.2 The need for an ‘Aviation White Paper’

Since the liberalisation of air transport within the European Union in the 1980s (the privatisation of airlines and airport operators, and deregulation of air travel, e.g. removal of barriers for foreign airline operations), it was essentially left to the private sector to decide on and fund extra airport capacity. The lack of a national strategy in the UK, and the increasingly vociferous local opposition, meant that any new development was becoming practically impossible. For example, the public inquiry concerning the development of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 was the longest in British history. The inquiry lasted for over four years (1995–99) and cost in excess of £80 million (Thorpe, 1999). The aviation industry was therefore desperate to avoid a similar situation in future developments.

Figure 13 ‘A special birthday? I know just the thing…’

In the year 2000, more than 180 million passengers flew from UK airports, with demand to fly having risen threefold since 1980. By 2001, the aviation industry was estimated to contribute £13 billion to the UK gross domestic product (the gross domestic product is a measure of the amount of economic production of a particular nation in financial terms during a specific time period. This is a measure of national income and output, and is frequently used as an indicator of a nation’s standard of living). Most calculations of the economic benefits of aviation use a methodology developed by the Federal Aviation Administration, which sums the direct, indirect and induced effects of aviation (I will discuss this in more detail later in the case study). But many UK airports are already nearing their capacity limits especially those surrounding the London area (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton – see Figure 14 for locations). This lack of capacity was seen to severely limit any future growth in passenger numbers and economic gain.

Figure 14 Map of main London airports

The pressure on the UK government by the aviation industry to provide a long-term strategic plan for air travel is exemplified by the following quote from a regional newspaper:

*The Freedom to Fly Coalition combined a wide range of interest groups including airlines, airport operators, trades unions and businesses (represented by the British Chambers of Commerce which has a membership of 135,000 businesses).

The pressure on the British government to deliver a long-term strategy that guaranteed airport expansion had never been greater.

Activity 19 Comparing two aviation videos

This activity invites you to watch two video programmes. These have been chosen to portray two very different perspectives on the case study topic. Watch them critically. They are not intended to represent the views of the author or the module team. Their purpose is to illustrate contrasting positions in the air transport debate.

View the Reach for the Sky documentary produced by Undercurrents in 2005, an independent media production company. The video will illustrate the local, regional, national and international contexts of air travel and its various environmental impacts, representing many of the issues of concern to the environmental movement.

As you watch the video, try and focus on the social, spatial and temporal dimensions of the various issues presented.

1. Which groups of people are involved?
2. Where are they located?
3. Over which time period are they involved and/or affected?

Note your answers to these questions – they may be useful later in the unit.

Download this video clip.Video player: Reach for the Sky

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Reach for the Sky (36 minutes 37 seconds)

Reach for the Sky

Female speaker 1

Now the world is in your hands with TV Travel Shop as we can you fly from airports all over the UK to destinations far and wide...

Narrator

Each year more of us are choosing cheap flights to travel on our holiday trips than ever before, but is aviation fuel responsible for creating the very weather we are trying to escape from?During this programme we will explore how the aviation industry has gone from pioneer to polluter in their quest to reach for the sky.

Ted Solomon

The Lysander was the plane that used to tow the drogue for target practice, they would go out over the sea and you continued to hear 'pop pop pop pop pop' like this and on one or two occasions the drogue was so badly shot at it would drop in the fields.

Narrator

Ted Solomon has lived here on the Gower Peninsular of South Wales his entire life. His passion for aircraft is equally matched by an intense love for his farm. Strewn across his farm lie the crumbling remains of a World War II airbase. To prepare for the Battle of Britain in 1940, the Air Ministry took control of his fields to train fighter pilots.

Ted Solomon

We had the airmen’s mess, the sergeant’s mess, from which I am speaking now and the officer’s mess, all put on our fields.

Narrator

For many generations his own and many other families had relied on their common rights to feed their animals on nearby Fairwood Common, but over the course of the war much of the rich and fertile soil disappeared under concrete runways, access roads and buildings.

Ted Solomon

We were looking forward to that huge central area of Fairwood to be given back and all the installations demolished, taken away.

Narrator

Despite written assurances that Ted’s farm would be returned intact, the Air Ministry instead abandoned the airbase leaving the buildings and runways to slowly decline.Eleven years after the end of the war, the Gower Peninsular was officially recognised as Britain’s first area of outstanding natural beauty, in that same year Parliament extinguished the grazing rights of all Fairwood commoners. As compensation, Ted was offered only fifty one pounds, five shillings and eleven pence. In return Ted would have to agree to waive away any possibility of future claims.The young farmer refused to sign.

Ted Solomon

So that’s how it stands today, they have taken the land and they have refused to pay us the price for it. The commoners being farmers, busy people, nobody has the time really to put into it to bring it to a head.

Narrator

Many other airfields have a similar history to Fairwood Common which prompted a coalition of farmers and environmentalists to launch a land rights campaign for Britain in 1995.

Male

Hopefully we will be able to drive the coaches right on to the airfields. So far there are no police around that we have heard of here, although there are some at Fleet.

Narrator

Many of the farmers surrounding Wisely airbase in Surrey had their common rights suspended when the Air Ministry took control of the land in 1943 and just as on Fairwood Common, grazing rights were never reinstated when the base was eventually abandoned.

George Monbiot

We have taken over the sight of Wisely airfield, it is now a disused airfield, it is wasted destroyed land.They are thinking of turning it back into an airfield at 35,000 flights a year here, we have taken it back for the people of Britain as land which is once more ours in the common domain.

Narrator

For seven days the campaigners built shelters, planted crops and trees while living on the airfield, their high profile occupation would later inspire dozens of similar land rights demonstrations across Britain.

Josh Terre

It is a worldwide issue, people are being – had their land and their rights to the land stolen from them and land rights is one of the worldwide environmental and social justice issues of the next century and it is important to have that fight here as well as other places. Just because the land got stolen a long time ago, doesn’t make the issue any less relevant here.

Narrator

Plans to reintroduce flights at Wisely airfield have since been abandoned. Meanwhile back on Fairwood Common this World War II airfield was put back into use, mainly for private flying lessons. Until 2002 when a high flying accountant stepped into the picture. Millionaire Roy Thomas purchased the lease of Fairwood airfield for an undisclosed sum adding it to his extensive list of properties in the nearby city of Swansea.

Aircraft

...Hotel route via the Mumbles to...

Narrator

Mr Thomas is also Chairman of his own airline company Air Wales which began using the airfield for commuting between London and Swansea. Mr Thomas hopes to expand the small airfield situated in the middle of a prime beauty spot into a fully commercial airport. By lowering journey times, Air Wales is challenging the other existing methods of transport in the race to London. However, as road traffic around the airport increases local residents are concerned about the impact a larger airport will have on their lives.

Radio presenter

Morning ... you are through to the hotline.

Radio voice (male #1)

I think instead of protesting against the airport, these people should be behind this man who is putting his own money into the airport.

Radio voice (female #1)

People around the airports are in danger of having £20,000 knocked off the value of their homes – if that is the bottom line for you and you don’t care about the environment, maybe you will wake up now.

Radio voice (male #2)

We have got to realise that we have to stop global warming and it is not nimbyish to do that.

Radio voice (female #2)

But I think we have to weigh up the advantages because any city without an airport is a second-class city.

Narrator

Tourism is the region's largest revenue earner and some business people fear that noise could damage its reputation as a first-class relaxation spot.

Marianne Walters

The people that come to Gower are mainly couples and families with young children and they come for the beaches, they come for walks and my guest book is full of remarks about how relaxing Gower is, how glorious the beaches are.People say well there won’t be big aeroplanes coming in, there doesn’t have to be big aeroplanes, the fifty seaters that are coming in now are very very noisy, propeller planes.

Narrator

Aircraft noise is only one concern. In the summer of 2003 Swansea City Councillors were summoned to the airfield to inspect the proposed site of a new aircraft hanger.Similar in size to 144 bedroom houses, nature lovers are concerned that the huge construction work could affect the surrounding award-winning countryside.

Roy Jones

We have been concerned about the airport for many years because it is completely surrounded by a SAC – that is a special area of conservation; it contains the marsh fritillary butterfly which is quite a rare species in Europe generally.They have considered it as an area of outstanding natural beauty, but that is not an ecological designation, that is a landscape designation and they haven’t looked at ecology at all.

Narrator

At the Guild Hall the councillors find public demonstrations as they arrive to make their decision about the construction of the enormous hanger.

Darlene McCullough

Any other development of this size would go through rigorous control, there would be environmental studies done, there would be impact on the local economy and the local environment, but this is not happening in this case and we feel it is a case where the council are actually in favour of something because a local businessman is supporting it.

Roy Jones

On three days before the planning committee when the papers became available, we had a meeting with one of the chief planners. I asked about the ecology of the site and he said that an ecological report had been prepared by one of the ecological people in his department, Judy Sharrock.So we asked the receptionist to contact Judy Sharrock to find out where the report was and the message came back that the report had been lost.

Narrator

Swansea Council later admitted that the report had only ever consisted of a hastily written email from their ecologist, the unsigned note was inserted into the file before being presented to the planning committee. Inside the council chambers only one counsellor spoke out against the airport and the plans for the hanger were passed.Controversial plans to erect barbed wire fences surrounding the common were also given the green light. Friends of the Earth continued to request a full report on how the airport expansion would affect the surrounding ecology.

Roy Jones

Eventually we had a reply and this must have been three months after the planning meeting and the report said there was no ecological report.

Interviewer

Do you feel that you have been lied to?

Roy Jones

Oh well we have been deceived we feel, we have been deceived.

Narrator

David Gill, Head of Swansea Planning for Major Projects, declined to be interviewed and supplied this statement instead:'It is adopted council planning policy to support the retention and development of the airport subject to there being no unacceptable adverse environmental impact.'

Interviewer

Is there a fundamental problem with the airport being – that it's in the wrong place?

Martin Caton

Clearly if you were establishing an airport to service South West Wales now you wouldn’t build it at Fairwood on Gower, it would be closer to the M4.Having said that there clearly is that infrastructure there, it would cost an awful lot now to close it down because compensation would have to be paid by presumably the local authority if it chose to go down that road, and it does not because it strongly supports the role of Swansea airport as a regional airport.

Narrator

Political support for the industry is so strong that in 2003 the Government launched their thirty year aviation plan, also known as the White Paper. The document supports the expansion of nearly every main British airport.However, to gain permission to expand at Heathrow, the airline industry has to first lower the levels of toxic air already hanging over its neighbours.If the pollution can somehow be lowered, 700 homes surrounding Britain’s busiest airport will be demolished to make way for a third runway. The expansion plans also called for the closure and demolition of three schools and will forcibly evict thousands of people.

John Stewart

From every point of view the Government’s White Paper is a poor document, it is as relied on as entirely for its claims about economics of work done by the aviation industry, it hasn’t seriously tackled global warming, it has dismissed noise, it hasn’t really considered air pollution and my prediction would be that long before the thirty years is out, the aviation White Paper will be seen as a redundant document.

Narrator

John Stewart’s organisation has been set up to inform and represent the views of communities opposing the expansion plans at Heathrow.Whilst Clearskies concentrate on legal challenges, other groups are turning to a more direct form of action.After completing the thirty metre climb, five activists began a week-long occupation of a Heathrow crane to highlight how airline corporations are being heavily subsidised by the Government.Each year aviation companies avoid paying nine billion pounds in taxes. The directors are not required to pay VAT when purchasing their aircraft, while most of the vast quantities of fuel they consume remains entirely free of tax.

John Stewart

If that was imposed and if aviation fuel was taxed the same way as petrol for cars, the demand would be damped down to such an extent there would be no need for any more runways even in the South East over the next thirty years.The government is artificially stimulating demand through these tax concessions.

Narrator

To curb the predicted growth in air traffic, many have pointed towards rail and particularly high speed trains as a more sustainable solution for our travel needs.

John Stewart

45% of the journeys people make in the Euro-controlled countries, that’s the wider Europe, are 500 km or less in length, that is about 3 hours on a train.There is enormous scope to switch from short haul flights to high speed rail, the sadness is the government hasn’t really investigated alternatives to this growth seriously in any way at all.

Narrator

Ever since the first aircraft touched down on South Wales soil back in 1912, authorities have been swayed by the glamorous appeal of aviation. Perhaps enjoying the prestige of being a city-hopping official during the 1960s or busy launching airliners in the 80s, politicians somehow overlooked the need to place expansion restrictions on airports.Concerns have been raised about the role of Swansea Council in funding a commercial airport situated in the middle of a designated area of outstanding natural beauty, particularly since the region is already well served by Cardiff International Airport just forty minutes a way.As construction begins at the Fairwood Common airfield not everyone is pleased by Swansea Council support for pouring over £800,000 of public funds into the private company.

Marianne Walters

As somebody that’s needed to use our own capital and our own assets to start up a business, I resent public money being used for what is basically a commercial enterprise and a profit-making enterprise.

Narrator

As air traffic at Swansea Airport grows, the danger of accidents may also increase. Here a helicopter trying to land has crashed just in front of the control tower.

Male

Do you know if anybody is hurt?

Female airport employee

I don’t know, that is why we are staying, we don’t know what has happened.

Narrator

Fortunately, no one was injured in this collision and emergency services were on the scene within minutes.

Radio voice

The airport is blocked by an incident, it is completely blocked.

Male eyewitness

Well we were just standing, we heard the clatter and when I looked over the building all I could see was the rotor blades and debris flying up.

Narrator

As the fire service left, ground staff found that a number of other aircraft had also suffered considerable damage by flying debris.While the reporters are picking up the story and airport staff are picking up the pieces, one of the most serious impacts of uncontrolled aviation is generally being overlooked.

News reporter (female # )

The hottest day in history.

News reporter (female #2 )

101 degrees Fahrenheit, it is the hottest day ever recorded in Britain.

News reporter (female #1 )

It’s never been hotter in Britain.

News reporter (female #3 )

Temperatures for the last week are already around 10 degrees above average.

News reporter (male #1)

So it’s clear that global warming is reality.

Narrator

The hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990 and the rise in temperature of our seas is creating extreme weather patterns worldwide.While it is accepted that this heating up may be a natural process, scientists are convinced that the addition of our own pollution is a cause for concern.

Professor Mike Hambery

What’s happening now is that it is being accelerated by the increased greenhouse effect as a result of pollution of the atmosphere, particularly the input of carbon dioxide and we are now seeing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which are higher than at any other time in the last two million years.

Narrator

Professor Hambery joins the majority of world scientists in agreement that increased carbon dioxide will raise the earth’s temperature by a minimum of 1.4 degrees over the coming decade. And while 1.4 degrees may seem like very little to be concerned about, we have to go back 15 million years to find a comparably warm client.

Prof Hambery

15 million years ago there were no northern hemisphere ice sheets, there was no Greenland ice sheets, there were no mountain glaciers or anything like that, that water was in the sea, resulting in higher sea levels at that time.

Narrator

As debate continues about just how fast the polar ice sheets are melting today, Professor Hambery raises concerns about the glaciers and ice caps close to home.

Prof Hambery

The smaller glaciers, particularly the mountain glaciers and ice caps in places like the Alps or Norway, North America, these are now rapidly disappearing, but if these melt we are talking about sea level rises predicted to be of the order of ¼ to ½ metre by the year 2100.

Narrator

The increased volume of water in our seas is already damaging our coastlines with knock on effects being felt further inland.In 2004 the Treasury Department calculated the national cost of global warming caused by air travel alone is 1.4 billion pounds every year. Yet the airline industry only contributes half of that amount back to the Treasury each year.In a bid to avoid paying the costs, a number of corporations have decided to deny the very existence of global warming.

Mark Lynas

Global warming is definitely with us now, I mean there is some very striking changes which you can see just in terms of the weather, somewhere like here in Britain for example there has been a big increase in the amount of flooding that we have been seeing in the winter months and actually it has been doubling since over the last 30 years and in other places, other parts of the world it has been getting drier as a direct result.

Narrator

During the research for his book, Mark Lynas travelled across five continents investigating the impact of global warming.Trekking in the Peruvian Andes he returned to a glacier which his own father had photographed back in 1980.

Mark Lynas

This glacier which I went back to to see what it looked like, had completely disappeared, I was expecting some kind of change but it had disappeared and the same kinds of impacts are being seen now on mountain ranges right across the world.It is a global phenomenon, this is a global change in temperature that is affecting all of the earth quite dramatically.

Narrator

Back in Wales, sea defences are now proving to be so inadequate that millions of pounds of public money is being spent on the construction of ever higher barriers.Cheaper airfares are encouraging more of us to fly each year and the resulting carbon dioxide pollution is growing at an alarming rate.Some fear that a conflict of interest may stop the government from supporting less polluting forms of transport.

John Stewart

The government is very close to the aviation industry, it sees the aviation industry as a key component of globalisation which it believes in, and also it is very aware that if it did try to stop cheap flights, it might be branded as stopping people having their holidays in the sun.

Narrator

But people are seeking out alternative ways of exploring our planet. When a young couple emigrated from Britain to Australia, they chose the most environmentally friendly mode of transport in the world to get them there.After thousands of miles in the saddle, the effects of burning fossil fuels was all too clear by the time they reached India.

Lowanna King

Kev and I have had earache, constant sore nose, swollen glands and we don’t have a cold we don’t have any illness, it is just that is how polluted it is here in Delhi. It is quite scary that people have to live here.

Narrator

Arriving in Iran they felt sure of their decision to try a different method of transport other than the aeroplane.

Kevin Doye

Well I am standing in the middle of Isfahan’s famous Zayandeh River, or at least I am standing where the river used to be, there hasn’t been any rain in some parts of Iran for over two years and the views from the tea house under the bridge aren’t quite as green and pleasant as they used to be.With local fears about global warming and climate change, it has confirmed to us our decision to cycle and not fly back to Australia.

Narrator

Shortly after the couple left Iran, flash floods swept across the country killing 120 people. It is this unpredictable nature of our change in climate which has finally brought governments of the world together.Since 1991 the United Nations climate talks have been trying to negotiate agreed targets for the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.Despite thousands of people dying in landslides, floods and heat waves every year, and over one million plant and animal species facing extinction, a decade of discussion has produced little in the way of a workable solution.

Protestors

No more blah blah blah, action now!

Narrator

Every climate change conference held in every country has seen public demonstrations urging governments to implement real solutions.

Male protestor

We have to stay here until they can decide something for real and not just blah blah blah.

Narrator

In London climate campaigners are now targeting businessmen who they believe have been involved in hindering the climate change agreements.[Sir Mark Moody Stuart is hit by a cream pie thrown by a protestor]

Interviewer

What do you think Mr Stuart? What is your reaction?

Sir Mark Moody Stuart

Surprised, people are welcome to express their opinions, I hope they got the right person.

Narrator

Climate activists have pointed out the former chairman of Shell Oil, claiming his influence is allowing multi-national corporations to dodge responsibility for climate change.All across Europe, activists from campaign group Rising Tide have been using videos to encourage community groups, individuals and organisations to take more direct forms of action in tackling climate change.

George Marshall

Every year thousands of people fly from around the world to go to what is enormous jamboree climate change talk shops and then they all fly back.Very, very little is changing as far as I can see the main beneficiaries of this international process at the moment are the companies who fly them there.

Narrator

The financial world’s response to the crisis has been to invent a scheme for turning our pollution into profit.Planned to begin in 2005, their carbon trading scheme will allow each country to produce a legal amount of carbon dioxide pollution each year, go over the limit and heavy fines will be imposed, but any country that does succeed in reducing its emissions, can sell its carbon credits to balance the levels of the more polluting nations.

George Marshall

On the face of it carbon trading seems like quite a good idea; everybody gets an amount that they are allowed to pollute and people who manage to reduce below that level get to trade the difference. So you could say well it is an incentive for reducing.The problem is that by setting that level, we are setting in concrete the principle that those people are allowed to pollute in the first place.

Narrator

Granting industries the right to legally pollute is just one of many concerns about the scheme.Carbon trading may also allow large corporations to take ownership of our atmosphere.

George Marshall

As soon as you start allocating the property rights, you are actually privatising the atmosphere and really what you are creating is a vast new speculative carbon market and the ultimate beneficiaries of that are not going to be the climate, they are not going to be the developing countries, they are actually going to be the world’s financial community.

Narrator

George and his colleagues in the Rising Tide network have been taking their message directly to the people attempting to profiteer from climate change.Representatives from the United Nations and the government met with the oil companies in a hotel basement to discuss the implementation of carbon trading, instead the delegates received a presentation they hadn’t planned on.

George Marshall

The big issue that really faces all of you is we hear many many times the argument that well we have to have this, we have to have this because it is the only way that we can go ahead, the simple fact of the matter is that we believe this is not going to work and what you are discussing here is simply not going to work – it is diversionary tactic to draw attention from the real needs whilst at the same time it isn’t going to work.This is a protest because we actually believe that there is a right to express some kind of emotional engagement with this as well and we also didn’t seriously believe that if we did this any other way that you would actually listen to our point.

Male official

Excuse me Sir, can I stop you there...

George Marshall

We are totally in denial about climate change about what it means, every scientist is telling us that this is a huge crisis, every scientific institution is telling us we have to do something about it and yet nothing changesIt is like people who are suffering from lung cancer and they just keep smoking, we keep doing it.

Male official

Ladies and gentleman, I am very sorry for that, you have our apologies.

Narrator

In the Netherlands the largest single producer of carbon dioxide is Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. When construction was set to begin on its fifth runway, climate activists broke into the airport just before dawn.Concerns about global warming are so strong that previous demonstrations even forced the national airline to ground its aircraft; on this occasion the Dutch environmentalists blockaded a main runway, forcing the airport to shut down its operation.[Male protestor speaks in Dutch with on-screen captions] When Manchester Airport planned to put a second runway through this valley, the public launched the largest civil disobedience campaign against aviation ever seen across Britain.People from all over the country came to defend the forests. Anne Wynne-Jones even left her job in North Wales to live amongst the trees.[Anne Wynne-Jones speaks in Welsh with on-screen captions]

Male protestor

Mindless vandalism is what has been committed by the people that want to build this runway, what we are doing maybe classified to them as criminal damage, but it is morally justified and morally defensible.

Narrator

Masked men were hired in an attempt to bring a swift end to the demonstrations, however, the protest still continued on for two years costing the airport over 7 million poundsBut did the demonstrations and the destruction of the countryside persuade Manchester Airport to rethink its expansion plans?

Sally Sykes

I would take issue with the notion that we are destroying the countryside, I mean clearly putting a runway down does involve some disruption but the reason why we have got our planning permission is because an inspector concluding his planning report said the case for the second runway was overwhelming.

Narrator

The second runway at Manchester was eventually built, but protests against airport expansion had continued elsewhere such as in Swansea.As construction continues at the airport on the Gower Peninsular, local people are being trained by activists from Manchester to take more radical steps in their protest.

Ian Williams

There seems to be no route for us to go through the proper channels, the council is not listening to us, I have written three letters to assembly members with no answer at all, I think it is time to upgrade what we are doing, to take a stronger action.

Female protestor

That’s great.

Larch Jukes Maxey

'One thing you might want to do is what you did then, which is the person with the key then goes off away somewhere so actually they can’t check you for the key but we can access it if we need to.'Everyone knows that it is bad to drive a car, but what people don’t realise is that aviation is actually far more polluting, it is the most polluting way to travel. We are trying to get that message across as well as directly opposing expansion of Swansea airport, so I am here to help train these people, these local people and show that if everyone does something, we can actually stop it.

News reporter

Air Wales is closing its operation in Swansea and moving services to Cardiff, the company says not enough people were making the most of the cheap flights from Swansea Airport to places like Amsterdam and Dublin.

Narrator

In the history of powered flight, we have advanced rapidly from that first twelve second journey in 1903 to the enormous fuel burning airliners of today.Within that short time we have produced enough pollution to dangerously alter our fragile atmosphere.If aviation is to continue serving us, the airline industry will have to accept the true cost to our planet and the cost to a generation of people not yet born.

End transcript: Reach for the Sky (36 minutes 37 seconds)

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Now, have a look at the video produced by the British Airports Authority (BAA) in 2005 on Heathrow Terminal 5. (Note this video is presented as eight separate short sequences.) How does this video compare to the Reach for the Sky video in terms of social, temporal and spatial dimensions?

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Transcript: Heathrow Terminal 5 – Passenger experience (3 minutes 54 seconds)

Narrator

Terminal 5 is not the beginning or end of a journey, but a point of transit in a longer journey. That said it would be a very spectacular point providing the passenger with a special experience in travel.The first wow factor will surely be the breathtaking glazed façade and sweeping wave form roof over the spacious terminal building. But what will really wow passengers will be the way that Terminal 5 combines beauty with accessibility and ease of use.The whole terminal has been designed as a public transport interchange, that seamlessly combines rail, bus, coach and taxi services. BAA’s vision is that up to 50% of service journeys to T5 will be made by public transport, so public transport has been given a top priority.Passengers arriving by rail on the Heathrow Express or the Piccadilly Line, will alight to a stunning new rail station under the main terminal building and with the construction of two additional platforms, provision has even been made for potential future high speed rail links. High speed lifts and glazed walkways lead to the departure check-ins and security areas.Once there, fast track facilities such as the option of customer activated check-ins will provide autonomy and choice, whilst the intuitive customer friendly layout will allow passengers to proceed directly from check-in, through security to the magnificent departures lounge and gates. All this whilst enjoying superb views of the world’s busiest international airport.Arriving passengers too will experience easy access to the terminal to public transport options beyond. In front of the terminal building is a beautifully landscaped interchange plaza where all the modes of transport intersect, this 30 metre wide pedestrian area will provide a landscaped open space between the multi-storey car park and terminal façade.In addition to the express lifts to the rail stations, glazed link bridges spanning the interchange area will connect to bus, coach and taxi facilities to be found integrated into the forecourts of the new multi-storey car park. Access to and from the 4,000 space car park will be from a brand new dedicated spur from the M25.As well as the main terminal building, Terminal 5 will have two satellites, the first of which will open at the same time as the main terminal in 2008. The design of the satellite building will echo that of the main terminal and the two will be linked by a track transit system, an automated driverless people mover.The satellite building is marginally longer but half the width of the main terminal, built on seven levels, three below apron level and four above; the satellite will serve as the main transfer baggage hub for British Airways South East operation. The whole of Heathrow and connecting passengers will benefit from this superb addition to the world’s busiest international airport.Terminal 5 will free capacity and therefore enable the redevelopment of the existing terminals. The icing on the cake will be a brand new control tower to serve the whole airport. It will be equipped with the very latest technology and offer controllers one of the best views from any control tower in the world.

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Transcript: Heathrow Terminal 5 – Health, safety and welfare

Health, Safety and Welfare

Narrator

Setting new standards for construction is at the heart of the Terminal 5 project, nowhere more so than in the areas of health, safety, training and welfare. At peak, Terminal 5’s 4.2 billion pound construction programme will employ some 5,000 site workers and take an estimated 37 million man hours to construct. That is 37 million man hours during which BAA considers that even one accident or injury is one too many. The aim is to create a culture where safety is considered a core value by everyone working on T5.Before starting work, new employees must attend Terminal 5’s award winning pre-employment induction course. Terminal 5 also boasts the UK’s first on-site test centre for the construction skills certification scheme (CSCS). A valid CSCS card provides employees with an industry recognised health and safety skills accreditation. Many other skills can be acquired through on the job NVQ training; honing of everybody’s skills benefits the project and the individual’s CV.Each project and sub project has different requirements so additional inductions and training for specific work areas have been developed. Regular top up or tool box talks provide opportunities for health and safety refreshers and updates.BAA has also introduced a new culture change programme called Incident and Injury Free. This is a drive to eliminate even the possibility of an accident. IIF is not just about reducing the number of accidents, it is about changing attitudes and behaviour to prevent long established methods being blindly followed.100% safety record is the aim of the team and to achieve this everyone working on T5 attends courses and workshops to enable this vision to become as close a reality as humanly possible.The welfare of T5’s huge workforce is also high on the agenda. There are six separate site compounds each with first class changing rooms, showers and a canteen, the largest of the canteens can feed 400 people at each sitting.At the Occupational Health Centre, a dedicated team comprising of seven nurses, an occupational health doctor and visiting GP, provide an exceptional service including regular health awareness campaigns as well as emergency response.Site workers are also offered free medicals or can just pop in for advice.

Angie Young

I think what singles T5 out as special is that BAA had the foresight to actually decide that they were going to provide the occupational health service themselves; it's a service that is going to bring in advice to designers, advice to procurement, pre-employment medicals for people who have safety critical jobs – so the approach that this has taken is, I think quite visionary because it is giving them a whole scope of services that they wouldn’t have on any other construction job in the UK and maybe even Europe.

Narrator

BAA would like people to go home each day safe and preferably healthier than when they started.

Mike Evans

Achieving better health and safety standards is not a technical problem, it is a case of getting commitment from everyone involved.If it can’t be done safely, don’t do it; that has to become more than just a slogan on T5, people have to believe that we're serious about it.

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Transcript: Heathrow Terminal 5- Training and education

Training and Education

Narrator

As well as providing on site training for Terminal 5 workers, BAA has an eye to the future.Its aim is to ensure that local people benefit from the employment opportunities that T5 and Heathrow provide.Commitment to training starts pre-employment and BAA has a training and skills strategy which is focused on its local labour market.The local labour strategy is delivered through the Heathrow Employment Forum, comprising BAA Heathrow, the Learning and Skills Council for Berkshire, West London and Surrey, and other key agencies responsible for planning and for funding recruitment and training. Through the forum BAA is investing £150,000 a year in training initiatives.

Joe Hardman

And the role of the forum is to really deliver the local labour strategy, and by bringing those agencies together it actually means we can have a far larger impact, that we can draw down far more substantial, financial resources in particular, so that the £150,000 that we put into the process, that’s very much a sequel. The total amount of investment that the other partners bring to bear, probably total several million pounds each year.

Narrator

Already four construction training centres have been set up in the local community for 14–16 year olds with a fifth due to open shortly.In addition, BAA is supporting ten local schools in their bids for specialist status and has created a bursary scheme which supports five students each year to study construction related disciplines at university.

Joe Hardman

What you can see behind me here is the Heathrow Construction Training Centre, this is a specialist construction training centre for apprentices which is the 16–19 age group.It takes in around 80 young people each year and puts them through a programme which leads to a full apprenticeship qualification which is the industry standard and it is up to NVQ level 2 or NVQ level 3.The aspiration of this centre is that actually we serve to increase the pool of construction workers for the future.

Paul Rutherford

The key skills and qualifications that the guys need to have which is the CSCS card. They won’t be allowed on site without it because it is geared towards their health and safety, so by the time they leave here they should be, like, really qualified trainees so to speak, well they'll be professional by the time they leave here, hopefully.

Apprentice

I always enjoy working with my hands and in the carpentry and in the building so I thought I would come here, it's good.I have done the health and safety test and passed that which is important.

Joe Hardman

Terminal 5 itself opens in 2008, then that in itself will create new employment and new training opportunities for local people. It is a few years away, but we need to start planning now, so we have already started to work for example with some of the retailers at Heathrow and we can make sure too that local people can benefit from those opportunities to the fullest.

Apprentice

I am hoping to work at Terminal 5.

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Transcript: Heathrow Terminal 5 - Logistics

Logistics

Narrator

Heathrow Terminal 5 is currently Europe’s largest and most complex infrastructure programme.At 260 hectares, the T5 site is about the same size as London’s Hyde Park. However, it is physically constrained in its location between two of the world’s busiest runways, with existing terminals to the east, Europe’s busiest motorway interchange to the west and a local residential community.Within this space, 36 different work areas handle construction of terminal buildings, tunnels, support services, road and aircraft stands. The project needs a reliable and efficient supply of materials daily, but there is very little room to store materials on site.Environmental considerations have also been taken into account to minimise congestion that could be caused by the volume of site traffic and deliveries.To meet these challenges, T5 has implemented innovative logistic solutions that include as much off-site prefabrication and reassembly as possible, two off-site logistics or materials consolidation centres, web-based production control software, and a single well-managed entrance and exit plaza.Examples of off-site prefabrication include lining segments for seven of the project's nine tunnels, wall units for two new river channels, roof cassettes for the main terminal building and fully equipped building services modules, the largest of which are 130 tons.Prefabricated units are sometimes delivered directly to site when they arrive by rail or road at the nearby Colnbrook Logistics Centre, which was designed and built to purpose by BAA. Bulk materials such as cement, pulverised peel ash and aggregate are brought in by rail, stored for up to a few days and delivered to site when and where required.Colnbrook also boasts the state of the art rebar facility for fabrication of steel reinforcement into pre-assembled cages. The factory offers a safe weatherproof environment which at peak has produced 500 tons of rebar per day.A second consolidation centre, Heathrow South Logistics Centre, has a further rebar facility dedicated to the automated manufacture of pile cages needed for the heavy civils phase of the construction programme. As the T5 project moves from the civils phase to buildings and fit out phases, this consolidation centre will be used primarily for the assembly of materials into work packages ready for delivery to site.The well-equipped entry and exit plaza can, at peak, cope with one delivery every thirty seconds. Key to all this activity is the web-based project flow software, this is used to control the work flow across the project and to ensure that the exact quantities of materials are delivered to the right places at just the right times. No waste, no delays. No need to store materials on site.BAA logistics strategy is: to respect the community, to look after the environment by minimising traffic movements and eliminating waste, to create safer working conditions, to control quality and to improve the reliability and efficient use of materials.This approach is delivering productivity levels that are an unprecedented 15-25% higher than a typical UK construction site. With such a complex construction programme, this logistics strategy will ensure that Terminal 5 opens on time in March 2008.

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Transcript: Heathrow Terminal 5 - Archaeology

Archaeology

Narrator

Changing use of the land is nothing new at Heathrow.New evidence has shown that ways of life have changed many times over thousands of years.In building for the future, Terminal 5 has presented a unique archaeological opportunity to better understand the past and preserve the ancient history of Heathrow for future generations.Archaeology and construction don’t usually make good bedfellows, but BAA and its construction partners have pioneered a seamless integration of the two activities. In April 2002 a team of 80 archaeologists set to work, harnessing satellite technology to map the site before excavating the relevant areas, which would in turn be handed over to construction teams.On-site facilities have been provided including the traditional shed for cleaning and sifting artefacts and sophisticated IT resources for real time analysis of data.

Ken Welsh

We have excavated nearly 100 hectares which really is a very large area, and that is 100 hectares of a prehistoric and Roman landscape, and because we have dug such a lot, instead of just as archaeologists normally do, just see a key hole, they might see a small bit of a settlement here or part of a field here, we have been able to see the whole landscape, so we have seen all the settlements, how they relate to each other, how the track ways run between the settlements and how that landscape has changed over the years, how people have modified it, dug new ditches, built new buildings, and that gives us a real insight into the way people lived.

Narrator

Excavations have revealed that the area was inhabited from the middle of the Mesolithic age circa 6000 BC and that the earliest farmers appeared to be from the Neolithic or New Stone Age period dated from 4000 to 2400 BC.

Archaeologist

Well one of the most important monuments on this site is the monument known as Stanwell Cursis – this is a monument which spans for about 3½ miles and was constructed about 5000 years ago as some sort of processional causeway across the landscape where the Neolithic people could visit the site’s important event in the landscape.

Narrator

During excavations over 80,000 artefacts have been found dating throughout history and including a bronze age finger ring, pottery 3½ thousand years old, Neolithic arrow heads, and Roman and Saxon broaches.

Archaeologist

Some of the really nice things that we have found have been in waterholes and the wet conditions in the bottom of the waterholes preserves wood and leather and other sort of organic material which normally gets destroyed over time. And so we have found Bronze Age axe halves, wood axe halves and wooden bowls, ladders that people actually got up and down into the water holes and so you know it has been fantastic.

Narrator

The waterhole being excavated here is on the site where two rivers have been diverted ahead of the construction programme. Whilst on either side of the area construction work continues apace on land that has already been researched and documented.

Archaeologist

It is a real privilege to be part of it here, because you really get a feeling that we are rewriting history and the understanding of human inhabitation in this part of London.

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Transcript: Heathrow Terminal 5 - Rivers

Rivers

Narrator

One of the most time-critical sub projects of the Terminal 5 construction programme has been the twin river diversion scheme.Until April 2004 two rivers ran right through the middle of the site, literally bisecting it. It was imperative that the rivers be sensitively moved at the earliest opportunity. The Duke of Northumberland’s river, is manmade and was constructed in the 1530s to divert water from the River Colne to feed the River Crane and the royal residence at Syon House. The Longford River also manmade, was built in 1638 by Charles I to feed the fountains at Bushey Park and to take water to Hampton Court Palace. The Duke of Northumberland’s river belongs to the environment agency and the Longford River to the crown. BAA worked closely with the Environment Agency and the Royal Parks Agency to agree a scheme that would both improve the rivers and divert them into two new channels around the western perimeter of the airport. This meant also diverting 4 kms of the airport’s western perimeter road without causing disruption to local traffic or site delivery.On-site, the original rivers had run in tunnels under the northern and southern runways and in open channels through what was then the sewage treatment works.When construction began the rivers were protected from the surrounding T5 construction by a 10 metre exclusion zone and endangered wildlife species were carefully relocated.The newly-built river channels are 3 kms long, longer in fact than the original rivers. 2/3 of the channels have been created in some vertical concrete walls and the other 1/3 enjoys natural river banks.Locally-sourced materials including clay and terrace gravel were used to line the new channels and in-channel enhancements were introduced to improve the ecology and flow of the rivers. These include reclaimed timber and stone filled baskets to provide new habitats for fish, plants and macro invertebrates.When everything was in place the new channels were filled with water from the original rivers. Fresh water duck muscles, about a thousand of them were translocated from the old river beds to the new. Thousands of fish too including pike, dace, perch and even eels were carefully caught and then set free in the rivers to naturally repopulate the new channels.Silt and gravels from the original rivers, rich in macro invertebrates such as shrimp and snails, were also translocated to the new channels. Pallets of pre-grown native plants were placed on the river beds and on banks to provide additional ecological value. The area has also been carefully landscaped with trees, shrubs and plants to provide a high quality landscape.Just 18 months after work commenced, both the Longford and Duke of Northumberland rivers were switched to the new channels. Back on site the old river channels could then be made available to T5's archaeology team for further exploration; an unmissable opportunity before eager construction teams complete the works between the main terminal and the first satellite building.The new rivers are now thriving.

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Transcript: Heathrow Terminal 5 - Partnership – risk management

Partnership-Risk Management

Narrator

At a cost of 4.2 billion pounds, Terminal 5 represents a huge programme of construction work.At the outset, BAA recognised that an infrastructure project of this scale and complexity represented a sizeable risk, it would inevitably be an uncertain environment so completing Terminal 5 on time, safely, to a high quality and within budget would require a fresh approach to project management.To enable all parties to work effectively together, applying best practice across the entire project, BAA established a contractual partnership with its key suppliers known as the T5 agreement. This contract is unique in construction.

Tony Douglas

The T5 agreement in principle is very simple. It acknowledges that BAA holds all the risk, all of the time, it acknowledges that BAA is both the clients, the project manager and at times also a team member and it acknowledges that we can only truly deliver a programme of this scale and this complexity with partners.

Narrator

With the burden of risk lifted, the many suppliers and contractors working on T5 are able to put their joint effort and energy into creating solutions.Risk is being effectively managed, enabling BAA and its suppliers to avoid the traditional UK construction culture of blame and litigation in the face of difficulties. This is a first in UK construction history.Under the T5 agreement, all parties work together as a single integrated team to make the best possible use of expertise and resources. A good example of how this has worked is the innovative design, fabrication and erection of the terminal roof. From the earliest stage architects and designers met regularly with fabricators and constructors, enable each to understand the other’s aspirations and requirements, nothing has been left to chance. The 22 abutments that support the roof are a good example, as they are particularly complex. So to ensure the best possible quality and safe efficient construction, a trial run was commissioned – at a cost of £4 million, one of the abutments was manufactured ahead of programme and then erected offsite in the Yorkshire countryside.One of the challenges was learning how to manage complex lifts within permitted heights so as not to interfere with airport radar. BAA and its partners learnt over 140 lessons from the exercise, designs were refined and construction methods modified before the structure was disassembled and transported to the T5 site at Heathrow where the same team would construct the entire roof. The expensive delays and modifications often incurred on major projects has been avoided as successive 2500 ton roof modules have been raised between the abutments.But the terminal roof is just one sub project within this massive undertaking.Terminal 5 has been broken down into 16 projects with over 170 sub projects. UK best practice is a minimum target to be improved upon wherever possible and key milestones have been set with incentive schemes to reward teamwork and achievement.Results of the pioneering T5 agreement won’t be fully recognised until the terminal opens in March 2008, but examples of its success are already visible.

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Transcript: Heathrow Terminal 5 - Summary

Summary

Mike Davies

The challenge has been to produce a building which is dynamic, robust, sustainable, and flexible, which is a delight for passengers to walk through, a place they really want to go through in preference to other airports and which is a memorable place whilst being efficient and effective at its job.

Tony Douglas

Working for T5 is great; the enthusiasm on everybody’s face, the urgency that has now emerged in the project is simply overwhelming, I don’t know frankly whether there has ever been another project quite like this and I can’t wait to see the project complete in 2008.

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Discussion

To me, the Reach for the Sky documentary provides a very comprehensive coverage of social, temporal and spatial dimensions. It outlines the historical developments of aviation (post-World War 2) to the present day, the local and global impacts of aviation, and the wide range of social units involved. The last include the perspective of individuals, environmental non-governmental organisations, private businesses and local, regional and national government bodies, not only in the UK but from other countries in Europe and beyond.

BAA’s Heathrow Terminal 5 video focuses, however, on the local social, economic and environmental aspects, with limited consideration of the regional, national and international context and impacts of such a development.

You should now have a flavour of the contrasting pressures the UK government was under during the ‘Aviation White Paper’ process and the complex issues of scale that it had to contend with. The next section will illustrate the steps taken by the UK government and the contribution of a range of stakeholders towards the development of the Aviation White Paper.

Activity 2 should have given you an indication of the various scales in operation. At the most basic level, there are individuals deciding whether or not to fly and/or oppose or promote the aviation industry. At a higher organisational level, there are private enterprises who have a financial imperative while at the same time attempting to deal with pressures from clients, shareholders and government (through regulations) (see Box 1). At a more complex organisational scale, there are governments themselves developing national strategies and negotiating at local, regional, national and international level. Although this case study focuses on a national government’s decision-making process, the other scales of operation should not be forgotten.

5.3 The process leading up to the publication of the UK December 2003 Aviation White Paper

In case you are not familiar with the British government’s legislative process, Box 2 briefly describes the role of the ‘White Paper’.

In June 1998, the UK government published a white paper on land, sea and air transport for the UK called ‘New deal for transport: better for everyone’ (DfT, 1998), which announced, among other things, the government’s intention to produce a new UK airports policy that would look 30 years ahead.

The new airport expansion process officially started on 12 December 2000, with the publication of the national consultation document ‘The Future of Aviation’ and the stated intention of producing an ‘Aviation White Paper’ in a couple of years. This work was initiated by the then Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions. This is now the responsibility of the Department for Transport, DfT, due to a government reorganisation – a reorganisation which, in itself, may have significantly affected the outcome of the ‘Aviation White Paper’ process, since the Minister for Transport no longer had ‘environment’ as an area of direct responsibility.

It is useful to note here that the UK government at that time had only recently taken power. The Labour Party (supposedly of centre-left orientation) had swept to power in a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, marking a big change for a country which had previously been dominated by the centre-right Conservative Party for almost two decades. The new government was keen to immediately make a mark and so set about implementing a series of reforms, including in the area of transport. Alistair Darling was installed as the Minister for Transport with the brief to radically change the face of UK transport. The ‘Aviation White Paper’ was reputedly one of his major achievements during his term in office.

Under the leadership of the Department for Transport, the approach to the ‘Aviation White Paper’ decision-making process had two main thrusts. The first involved detailed research undertaken by private consultancy firms intended to provide the government with objective data. These were often described as ‘studies’ and were published by the DfT. The second approach involved extensive nationwide consultation with particular stakeholders and the public at large. The DfT had a comprehensive website and provided public roadshows of potential expansion options throughout the process. Consultation responses could either be carried out on paper and posted to the DfT or submitted online.

Box 3 shows the ‘Aviation White Paper’ timeline, starting with the publication of ‘The Future of Aviation’. Each major step in the decision-making process is marked by the publication of key documents. As you will see, the studies and consultations did not always follow each other in a logical sequence.

The timeline is hyperlinked to copies of the original documents. For example, ‘The future of aviation’ document was supported by two key publications: the ‘Air traffic forecasts for the United Kingdom’ and ‘Valuing the external costs of aviation’. You may want to familiarise yourself with the timeline and associated reports. There is, however, no need to read all the reports in detail. These have been included to give you access to the actual studies and consultations just in case you are interested in exploring the original material used within the decision-making process.

5.3.1 Structuring the decision-making process

From the start of the process, the UK Government saw the issue as an attempt to ‘maximise the significant social and economic benefits that growth in aviation would bring’ whilst minimising or ‘paying for’ the environmental impacts of such development (as quoted in ‘The Future of Aviation’).

The UK government’s decision-making process on airport expansion posed the following three fundamental questions:

1. How much extra airport capacity (defined as the number of passengers embarking on a flight per annum) will be needed over the next 30 years?
2. How will the environmental impact be mitigated or paid for?
3. Based on the forecasted passenger number, where should the new airport capacity be located?

This structure is not immediately apparent in the DfT documentation but has been interpreted in this way by most commentators in the media, although many have placed the environmental impacts as the last question.

As I describe the consequences of structuring the decision-making process with these three questions in the remainder of this case study, I will also provide other alternatives proposed by a range of stakeholders, some of which challenged both the process undertaken and the data provided. You may want to compare your response to the above activity with other stakeholder reactions, and to the study material as you engage with it.

5.3.2 How much airport capacity?

The purpose of the UK government’s ‘Air Traffic Forecasts for the United Kingdom’ report (DfT, 2003b), published at the same time as the ‘The Future of Aviation’ document, was to present the passenger demand forecasts as a means of structuring the investigation into options for airport expansion. A private consultancy company, Halcrow, was contracted to work on the DfT’s forecasting models: Second Passenger Allocation Model (SPAM) and then Second Passenger Allocation Simulation Model (SPASM).

(I would like to repeat here the same warning mentioned in my response to Activity 18 about the carbon emissions calculations. Although seemingly very complex, these mathematical models have to make significant simplifications and therefore cannot possibly take into account every possible parameter which will determine actual passenger numbers. Yet, these played a significant role in the decision-making process.)

By 2001, Halcrow had acquired sufficient data to provide a long-term simulation of passenger numbers. The SPASM forecasts of airport capacity produced by Halcrow included several assumptions on the fundamental drivers of long-term air traffic levels. These included:

• people’s increasing desire for travel
• an optimistic outlook for the future health of the UK and the global economy
• the UK’s increasing attractiveness as a global tourist destination
• an acceleration in the globalisation of industry, capital and labour
• increased liberalisation of the air transport industry and competition
• the limits of substitutability of alternative modes of transport, such as rail
• a reduction in the cost base, pricing and operational strategies of the aviation industry
• the increasing competition from hubs in mainland Europe and elsewhere
• the short-term duration of the effects of shocks (such as the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001)
• the stabilisation of oil price around $25 a barrel.

You may briefly want to assess how reasonable you feel these assumptions might be. The ‘national consultation’ section below shows that a concerted challenge on these assumptions by a range of stakeholders opposed to aviation expansion was made.

Based on these assumptions, the SPASM model outputs recommended a medium-term forecast of 500 million passengers flying by 2030 (as opposed to the 180 million passengers who flew in 2000). The DfT concluded in the ‘Future of Aviation’ consultation document that ‘the overall forecast of 500 million passengers in 2030, assuming airport capacity is accommodating, should be robust’ (DfT, 2003a, p. 5). Thus the government’s forecast was that demand would almost double within the next 20 years.

Figure 15 The SPASM-atron – perfect for your every number-crunching need!

5.3.3 How will the environmental impact be mitigated or paid for?

As major expansion was now seen as inevitable by the government decision makers, the issue of aviation’s environmental impacts had to be dealt with. Any study and/or valuation of environmental impacts by the aviation industry had to take into account the following key issues:

1. Noise – this is the single most important issue at the local level. Although significant improvements in aircraft engine design have resulted in drastic noise reductions, the sheer quantity of take-offs and landings is still causing levels of distress for people living near airports. Prolonged exposure to high levels of noise has been shown to cause loss of concentration during the daytime and sleep deprivation at night, sometimes leading to heightened stress levels and a reduction in immunological defences.
2. Emissions – these result not only from the aircraft themselves, but from ground support vehicles, refuelling and power generation equipment, and the extensive transportation infrastructure required to bring people and goods to and from airports. These create air quality problems locally and contribute to climate change globally. To the latter, one can add the potentially significant effects of condensation trails (contrails for short). These are the plumes of cloudlike condensation left behind in the atmosphere by passing aircraft. These plumes contribute to the reflection of heat back to earth and could contribute significantly to global warming. The particular chemicals involved include nitrous oxides, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), sulphur dioxide, ozone, small particles which contribute to health problems in the immediate surroundings of the airports and CO₂ as a major contributor to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
3. Water quality – on-site aviation industrial activities such as aircraft de-icing, maintenance and refuelling can cause the contamination of surface and groundwater. This could potentially affect the health of humans and other organisms directly by polluting drinking water supplies, or indirectly by incorporation into the food chain.
4. Waste – in-flight catering and toilets, along with extensive terminal facilities, generate significant amounts of liquid and solid wastes. These require large-scale treatment facilities which, if unavailable or malfunctioning, could threaten human health and the surrounding environment.
5. Land-take – this is probably the least publicised environmental impact, but the building of new runways, terminals and access infrastructure, and indirect development as a result of the economic stimulation, may result in additional pressure on green spaces which are already scarce, especially around already heavily urbanised areas such as London.

Figure 16 “…57…58…59”

Figure 17 “And as part of our land-take compensation scheme, we are giving our planes a ‘wetland livery’…”

So how should the government ensure that aviation meets the external environmental costs for which it is responsible? Should greater emphasis be placed on regulation (at global, national or local level), economic instruments or voluntary agreements? The ‘Valuing the External Costs of Aviation’ document set out the government’s fundamental approach to tackling environmental issues:

The ‘polluter pays principle’ basically implies that whoever causes pollution is responsible for the costs of repairing any damage. The ‘external costs of aviation’ are therefore an attempt to quantify in monetary terms the costs of repairing or compensating for the environmental impacts listed above.

Figure 18 The ‘polluter pays’ principle

The following is an example of how the government proposed to meet the ‘external environmental costs’:

(A decibel is a measure of the loudness of sound. A value of 0 dB is at the threshold of human hearing while values above 85 dB are considered harmful to human hearing. Many aeroplanes are capable of producing 100 dB at a 170m distance.)

The 5 pence levy per passenger for all the airports in the South East of England (except for Heathrow Airport), was seen to represent adequate compensation for the disruption caused to residents surrounding the airports and would be included in the ticket price for those journeys leaving from the South East of England. A higher charge would be placed on tickets leaving from Heathrow.

The other significant environmental impact that was converted into monetary costs by the report was climate change as a result of CO₂ emissions. The valuation of climate change impacts as a result of CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions is an extremely problematic and controversial area, with estimated costs ranging from £3 to £120 per tonne of carbon, and £1500 to £2400 per tonne of nitrous oxide. These upper and lower limits are constantly changing as scientists argue on the effects of global warming – for example the influence on the frequency of hurricanes in the USA, droughts in Africa and floods in Bangladesh. The values in Table 4 show the estimated monetary costs (in pounds sterling) for different aircraft types, i.e. the values represent the estimated costs of environmental damage caused by each journey for each aircraft type (short-haul journeys represent domestic and European travel while long-haul journeys represent extra-European travel such as to the USA or Asia). You can see that the values differ greatly between high and low estimates, yet the DfT required a single value for short-haul and long-haul flights to be passed on to the ticket price, so a weighted average was taken of the ‘medium’ figure reflecting the proportion of different aircraft types using UK airports and the proportion of short-haul and long-haul operations.

Other impacts, such as those on water quality, waste and land-take, were seen to be either insignificant and/or too complex to quantify economically. So it was decided to assess these impacts qualitatively by allowing experts to draw up a list of criteria on the importance of, say, the landscape surrounding airports, and then for the same experts to assign an index value along a five point scale ranging from ‘low impact’ to ‘high impact’. For example, if the areas lost to airport development contained a low biodiversity, then the ecological effects of development would simply be described as ‘low impact’. This is in stark contrast to the apparently precise monetary figures calculated for noise and emissions impacts.

Thus, the ‘Valuing the External Costs of Aviation’ report dealt with the environmental impacts (chiefly the effect of aviation emissions on climate change) by proposing to internalise the total environmental costs by eventually adding an approximate £3 levy on short-haul flight costs and a £20 levy on long-haul flight costs per passenger. It was assumed that the ‘stimulus to demand from the growth of low cost airlines and from increased airline competition could be sufficient to offset the suppressing effect [on passenger numbers] of any new environmental charges’.

Figure 19 ‘A beauty, sir! One careful owner, and in one of the lowest environmental damage cost brackets…’

But none of the research explained in detail how the funds raised would be used to repair and/or compensate for the various environmental impacts of airport expansion and associated effects. Some suggestions included paying for schoolchildren in areas surrounding airports to have regular day-trips to ‘quiet’ areas to compensate for the daily disruption they experienced as a result of the aircraft noise. Other questions were left unanswered; for example how the levy was going to compensate the millions of people potentially affected by aviation’s contribution to climate change.

Figure 20 Absolve here!

5.3.4 Response to national consultation

‘The Future of Aviation’ consultation ended on 12 December 2000 and more than 550 responses were received, with 120 responses from individuals, 106 responses from local authorities, 72 responses from environmental and residential organisations, and 119 responses from airports, airlines and related aviation organisations.

The overwhelming response to the questions about the environmental impacts of aviation was that the ‘polluter should pay’ and that aviation should meet its full ‘external environmental costs’ without benefiting from government subsidies. The taxation of aviation fuel was a major issue raised, although it was felt that this should be agreed at international level by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) (many respondents thought noise and emission standards should also be set by ICAO). Several respondents also said that value added tax (VAT) should be charged on air travel and on the purchase of aircraft. They pointed out that the British government was indirectly subsidising aviation by not taxing aviation fuel. In the mid 20th century, when the international airline industry was beginning to develop, tax had been construed as a major source of conflict as different national governments could charge different levels of tax, especially on fuel, potentially placing national airlines at a disadvantage. So in 1944, during the Chicago Civil Aviation Conference, an international agreement was made to not charge any tax on aviation-related businesses, including aviation fuel and the cost of aircraft. In 1992, the USA introduced the Open Skies Agreement which further liberalised aviation and made it virtually impossible for any national government to unilaterally introduce taxation on aviation.

Some specific responses that challenged both the assumptions and processes outlined in the national consultation document are included below.

• Airport Watch, a coalition of major environmental NGOs, including Friends of the Earth, Transport 2000 and the Woodland Trust, saw things very differently. The NGOs suggested that a tax on aviation fuel would effectively bring to an end the rising demand for air travel.
• Friends of the Earth and other NGOs were able to re-run SPASM with the same fuel VAT charges as those on cars (17.5%). The additional increases in travel costs effectively resulted in a significantly reduced number of passengers, rising to 315 million by 2030, and not the 500 million as predicted in the original simulation. This meant that existing runways could accommodate the increase if all capacity was used throughout the United Kingdom – no new runways would have to be built.
• Many groups also began to question the other assumptions made in the original SPASM simulation. For example, at the time of writing this case study in 2005, the price of oil seems to be ‘stabilising’ at around $65 per barrel, more than double the price originally used, and this is only four years after the original estimate.

Another major criticism was aimed at the decision-making process. At no stage were limiting factors such as CO₂ emissions considered. UK emissions of CO₂ in 2001 were 572 million tonnes, with aviation contributing 30 million tonnes (DTI, 2003). The Department for Trade and Industry 2003 Energy White Paper set a target of reducing total UK carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. Taking this target into account, it is estimated that the UK’s carbon emissions will be reduced to 495 million tonnes by 2020. The emissions resulting from the aviation growth forecasts by the original SPASM simulation would result in a projected 77 million tonnes of CO₂ released into the atmosphere by 2030, almost 16% of the total allowable emissions. The implications are that the UK population would have to drastically cut CO₂ emissions by, for example, reducing car journeys, household heating, and developing renewable and nuclear energy sources, just in order to accommodate the significant growth in emissions from air travel. So not only is aviation subsidised by not paying tax on fuel, but the non-travelling population would have to make additional sacrifices to accommodate the expansion, if the ‘Energy White Paper’ supposed targets are to be met.

Activity 21 Comparing audio interviews

The following audio clip, from a programme called Leading up to the white paper, contains two interviews – one with Mike Fawcett and Chris Cain of the Department for Transport and the second with Peter Ainsworth MP. Mike Fawcett was head of the Airports Policy Division from September 1996 until December 2003 and had overall responsibility for the production of the ‘Aviation White Paper’. Chris Cain worked in the Airports Policy Division from 1999 and was responsible for devising, commissioning and managing the programme of preparatory studies, preparing and undertaking some of the public consultations, and drafting sections of the white paper itself. Peter Ainsworth was chair of the Environmental Audit Committee (i.e. a UK parliamentary committee) at the time the white paper was published. The committee’s remit was ‘to consider to what extent the policies and programmes of government departments and non-departmental public bodies contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development’.

The two interviews present distinct views on the context leading up to the Aviation White Paper and on the process itself. Listen to these interviews and contrast them to your response to Activity 19. Compare your intuitive assessment as a newcomer to the issues with that of people who have been intimately associated with the process.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: Leading up to the white paper

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Transcript: Leading up to the white paper (28 minutes 31 seconds)

Leading up to the White Paper

BBC World Tonight 16-12-03

'Orville Wright did it 100 years ago tomorrow. Braving heavy rain and wind and lying flat across the lower wing of his biplane, he took to the air above Kitty Hawk Beach in North Carolina for an astonishing 12 seconds.Now we're all defying gravity and it's not about one passenger anymore; in the UK alone we take 180 million flights a year. According to the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, that'll be more like 500 million within 30 years which provides the rationale for today's White Paper on aviation, setting out the Government's case for more runways and airport expansions.But is the plane a curse or a blessing and is cheap flight really as cheap as we think?...'

Commentary

In December 2003 the British Government published its Future of Air Transport White Paper to a storm of controversy. It was widely criticised by a range of individuals, organisations and pressure groups, both within Parliament and outside, for its apparent failure to properly address the environmental impacts of aviation, and for the predictions which it made about growth in demand for flying and the decisions that were subsequently made on that premise.This three part programme critically examines the background and context which led up to the initiation of the White Paper, the research and consultation exercise that was subsequently undertaken and the policy decisions which ultimately were presented in the White Paper itself.You're listening to Part One, which looks at how the major issues addressed by the consultation were decided upon and how the process was formulated.Mike Fawcett was head of the Airports Policy Division at the Department for Transport from September 1996 until the end 2003. He had the overall responsibility for the production of the Future of Air Transport White Paper. He describes the factors that led the Government to initiate the White Paper process.

Mike Fawcett

I think in many ways the immediate motivation and prompt for the White Paper was the report by the Transport Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1996, which sort of recommended that there was a need for an up to date air transport policy and particularly on airports.There were many reasons for that.One was that the aviation industry wanted to have a framework within which it could plan. It was also important that people living around airports – local residents – should know what the future might hold. Also so that we could have a more strategic approach to the development of aviation and airports with a sort of long-term broad plan, not a sort of Stalinist five year plan, but a sort of broad strategy for the long term so that it was sort of less piecemeal, perhaps, than hitherto. I think one of the things that sharpened that in the late 1990s was the experience with the Terminal 5 Enquiry where there was perceived to be rather an absence of government policy framework, which meant that there was a lot of time spent in the enquiry trying to establish 'what is the government policy – what is the framework within which this planning enquiry about one particular development was taking place?' A number of things came together to suggest that it would be a good idea to have a long-term strategy.

Commentary

Peter Ainsworth MP is chair of the Commons Environmental Audit Committee which was highly critical of the White Paper. He believes there were other forces at work behind the initiation of the White Paper.

Peter Ainsworth

I think the whole process was driven by the desire of the industry to see very significant expansion in its capacity and clearly in its profits in the end, but I have nothing against that, but it is the government's job to look at all the issues involved, approach it in a way that balances the competing interests.I guess it was probably time to look again at aviation, there hadn't been any major policy initiatives in that sector for a long time and I certainly believe that the industry had interesting and valuable points to make and one should always listen to that, but I fear what happened was that the impulse being the industry's own commercial interest in expanding and growing, from the moment the process began it was tilted in a certain direction and people who wanted it tilted in an alternative direction were just not really – they were not listened to in a way that altered the basic course which the government had set out on when it began the process.

Commentary

There's certainly no doubt that the massive growth of the aviation industry had put pressure on the government for a clear policy on the expansion of aviation.

Mike Fawcett

The airline industry was deregulated and sort of fairly competitive in the late 1990s but rapidly becoming more competitive with the growth of the low cost airlines really turning the industry upside down and also of course being a sort of big driver of growth in capacity and increasing shortages of airport capacity as a result of the low cost carriers rapidly using up the available capacity.And on the airport side there was also a sort of tendency and a move during perhaps the 1990s as a whole to more privately owned airports and a more active competition between airports – not uniformly across the country - clearly BAA is still in a very strong position in the South–East market, but certainly an increased level of competition between airports around the country and so that was another factor that changed quite a lot since the previous White Paper, which was 1985, and which was famously described during the Terminal 5 Enquiry as 'getting a bit yellow round the edges'.

Commentary

While not disputing the factors behind the growth in the aviation industry, Peter Ainsworth suggests that the government seems to have looked at aviation in isolation from other major policy areas.

Peter Ainsworth

Well, I think the thing that they should have looked at right at the start was the way in which growth in aviation, which obviously has been massive over recent years, is compatible with other very important government objectives, in particular their objectives on climate change. And I don't believe that that was factored in.I think what we saw was a reaction to consumer demand for virtually unlimited travel, and the pressures that that was putting on infrastructure and capacity particularly in the South East, and not a holistic view of how all this fitted in with other bits of Government policy.So clearly demand for air travel has risen astronomically, it is still actually quite a young industry – if you think of when package holidays started, it is only about thirty five years ago – so if you look at the graph of air travel it has gone shooting up and I think there was an assumption that it would continue in the same kind of trajectory. Now I don't know, I believe in fact that that assumption was not challenged, and I think that should have been factored in much earlier on as well.

Commentary

So how much did the Government's own policy on climate change feature in the initiation stages of the process? Mike Fawcett again:

Mike Fawcett

That was probably not a very major factor in the decision to start the process, which was taken sort of back in the late '90s – a commitment to start the study, leading to the White Paper, was set out in John Prescott's 1998 transport White Paper.But the emerging policy on global warming and carbon emissions was certainly a very important factor that was changing during the sort of process of developing the White Paper on air transport, was a sort of very major topic of debate amongst the various stakeholders and also, of course, within Government. And that became a very big factor in the process of developing the policy that led to the White Paper.

Commentary

But even when climate change had become a major topic of debate, Mike Fawcett claims that the global affects of aviation were judged 'best dealt with at a global level' and that other important national interests had to be addressed.

Mike Fawcett

The debates that sort of led to policy and the White Paper did take place at a lot of levels, the thinking about global warming was a good example of that, because it's a problem that is global and I think there was sort of large measure of agreement among the sort of actors in the UK that it was a problem best tackled at a global level through global agreements, and particularly in aviation, a lot of things are decided through global agreements and it's jolly difficult to change them at any lower level.But equally this was a very important White Paper for sort of national policy, both in terms of sort of economic growth in the UK and meeting the aspirations of UK citizens, but also affecting in all sorts of ways the environment in the UK in a very big way.At a regional level affecting regional growth, regional development, thinking about the balance of economic growth in the north and south of the UK; the sort of aspirations of regions for growth which were very different in different parts of the UK.And at a local level obviously for many people absolutely critical – where people living close to airports are extremely concerned about noise and pollution and traffic and other factors. So, it was a sort of complex set of issues at a lot of different levels.

Commentary

Chris Cain worked with Mike Fawcett in the Airports Policy Division of the Department for Transport, and initially had responsibility for the programme of preparatory studies informing preparation of the White Paper across the UK.

Chris Cain

The industry impacts at all these different levels, and there are different issues that happen at these different spatial levels. And actually approaches and views are different as you go between the different levels.And actually what you are ending up having to do is not simply trying to decide a global issue or a local issue, but balance off these different spatial dimensions to the particular problem that you're dealing with in turn. It's a very complicated process.

Commentary

And pressure was building on the Government from the aviation industry itself as Mike Fawcett explains.

Mike Fawcett

There was certainly an urgency about running out of capacity, particularly runway capacity, and particularly at some of the main airports in the South East of England. They weren't the only ones but they were perhaps the ones that were concerning a lot of people, and not just people in the South East, but often regions who depended on connections to the major London airports for their sort of connections to other parts of the world and, for instance, people in Scotland – very concerned about the effects on economic growth if connections to Heathrow, in particular, became less good.

Commentary

Peter Ainsworth doesn't disagree.

Peter Ainsworth

It seems in retrospect that the Government was under considerable pressure from the aviation industry from airport owners and from airlines themselves to increase capacity because that industry had been growing extremely fast, wanted to grow faster and felt that there were going to be constraints on their ability to grow unless something changed, unless we had a considerable expansion and that was where the pressure was coming from, and that is the pressure to which the Government has responded.

Commentary

Ainsworth also thinks that some of the pressure was because the aviation industry felt it might lose out to European competition if something wasn't done to increase capacity in the UK.

Peter Ainsworth

I think the UK aviation industry was concerned and remained rightly from their point of view, concerned about competition from other airports within Europe, Schipol in particular, and didn't want to see the UK losing out with big expansions going on just over the Channel and finding that we were kind of becoming a poor relation in terms of capacity and their industry's ability to compete.Those are perfectly legitimate issues for the aviation industry to raise, but it is of course the Government's job to filter those representations through its policy objectives overall, and to come out with something which is balanced and consistent, and I think that is what failed to happen.

Commentary

Whatever the pressures and the context within which the White Paper process started, historically it was a new departure from the way airport planning had been carried out hitherto. Chris Cain:

Chris Cain

They basically had to go through the standard planning procedures that were applied to any kind of major development. Another example, Terminal 5, is the classic one that everybody's aware of – but there is the Manchester Second Runway Enquiry was another example of that.And for most types of significant development at an airport – if you look at something like a runway extension or a new terminal – they are big developments, that they're significant, the impacts are significant and therefore would be subject to an awful lot of scrutiny, but there was effectively things were being dealt with on an ad hoc basis, as they came forward. It's kind of a laissez faire approach.You'd have to make the case at specific airports based on specific local factors. There was no overarching strategy about where the best place to develop new capacity would be, what the best way of managing that process of development, how best to look at mitigating impacts – all of those things were being dealt with on a case by case basis rather than in a broad structure.

Commentary

Despite the fact that the new process was recognition of the need for a cohesive approach to aviation planning, Peter Ainsworth still found it flawed.

Peter Ainsworth

They went about it in quite an interesting way in that they did it on a regional basis initially, and that seemed to me at the time quite odd because it is hard to justify something which is clearly of national and indeed, if you take its environmental impact, its of global importance, being broken down and dealt with on a regional basis.And so you had all of these different regional enquiries and consultations going on which didn't actually refer to each other. That was a flaw I think in the way that the Government approached this and made it harder for them to tie together something that had a kind of overall consistency, a national consistency and when they came to produce the White Paper itself.

Commentary

But the Department for Transport maintain that a regional approach to the process was required because of the complex mix of factors and interactions at every location.

Mike Fawcett

There were a lot of different factors that we had to look at with a lot of interactions between them. So, for instance, to take a very simple example, the amount of noise that you would get round an airport depended very heavily on the amount of aircraft traffic using that location, and the amount of traffic using the location depended on what development was happening there and at other airports in the area, and what sort of growth of traffic, different types of traffic would be. So, I mean there were a lot of complex interactions that we had to look at in trying to assess the likely environmental effects and, of course, looking over a very long time frame of thirty years, which certainly posed some challenges.

Chris Cain

The starting point has to be to understand the kinds of developments that might be required, then understand their impacts and then to try to find the right balance between those two things.I think it's also fair to say that the environmental debate got significantly stronger during what was a long process, and as Mike indicated earlier, what we had to try and do was reflect the strength and changing nature of the environmental debate over the five year period where we were looking at options, so that by the time we got to that, that had been thoroughly integrated into the final policy.

Commentary

But Peter Ainsworth thinks that consideration of the environmental impacts of aviation, and in particular climate change, should have been integrated into the process from the start.

Peter Ainsworth

Well I would like to think that we would have factored in at a much earlier stage the environmental impact of aviation.This is the big – this is why it is an interesting and also a controversial issue because, yes, everyone likes to go on cheap foreign holidays there is no question about that, but there is a huge environmental cost. Not just in terms of the impact on the local environment of noise, of pollution, of deteriorating air quality, of sleepless nights, of land take, biodiversity, all those kind – the impact on historic buildings that get the National Trust for example very excited, but also of course in terms of the affect on climate change.In the end, we are either serious about tackling climate change or we are not and there is no more glaring example that I can think of in terms of today's politics, of a failure to join up thinking about climate change with another policy area, in this case obviously aviation.

Commentary

The DfT team contend that they were trying to incorporate a whole range of environmental impacts and mitigating factors into their methodology and modelling exercise, as objectively as possible, so as not to prejudice the eventual outcome in policy terms.

Mike Fawcett

At the outset it was certainly recognised that we needed to sort of identify the environmental impacts to get a bit more certainty into what had perhaps previously just been a sort of fear of just terrible continuing growth and what does that mean, and people understandably had fears that this would just mean horrendously more noise and horrendously more road traffic and so on.And so it was getting some sort of quantification of that and taking account of likely future technological developments, but also not just sort of accepting a certain sort of rate of improvement of, for instance, aircraft technology, but also trying to understand where we could drive that process to get a better reconciliation between sort of aviation growth and environmental impact and to get a sort of lower rate of impact per unit of growth that was one of the things that we were trying to do.

Chris Cain

When we started the process of study we had to do an awful lot of work to develop a methodology which would allow us to objectively evaluate different kinds of propositions, and that in itself – developing the modelling tools, the analysis frameworks – was quite a significant exercise before you could start looking at ranges of scenarios and options. And critical was that that analysis had to be objective, it had to be thorough, and it had to be capable of standing close scrutiny.We didn't want to come with preconceived ideas as to what the best solution at a particular airport would be. And in some cases that raised options which were very controversial.But it was very important to not have preconceptions and to be able to basically consult upon the widest possible range, and then use the consultation responses we got to help formulate and frame policy based on a well-founded set of analysis which we could be confident of.We were trying to get if you like a robust factual analysis rather than a lot of speculation, to try and give people some real facts and figures rather than a lot of, er – it almost became second or third hand opinions – which weren't terribly well founded in terms of the analysis.

Commentary

So what specific issues did the DfT try to resolve within the process itself?

Mike Fawcett

I think there were perhaps two broad types of issue. There were some broad policy questions and the issue of just how much growth of aviation in the UK should there be, taking account of on the one hand the economic benefits from growth of aviation, both for UK businesses increasingly operating on an international and indeed global level and for sort of attracting inward tourism to the UK. And, on the other hand the clear environmental impacts of aviation at both a local level and at a global level, not least in respect of global warming.So, there was sort of a big policy issue there which sort of overlay everything that we were looking at.But also at a sort of more local level, there were sort of trade-offs on the amount of development at a particular airport and the particular location of development – whether it's a new runway or a new terminal there were clearly, in almost all cases, several options that could be considered with a range of different impacts, and so what we wanted to do at that level was to identify as far we could, the plausible options. Maybe we didn't always identify sort of, precisely what they might be, but the sort of plausible broad options and assess the environmental – and indeed economic – impacts of those options to sort of try and identify, well, you know, if we're going to have any growth at all at this location, what is the more promising source of option?So it was those two different levels of sort of thinking and activity.

Commentary

The Environmental Audit Committee also criticised some of the economic benefits which were assumed in the DfT's model.

Peter Ainsworth

We have currently in this country a balance of trade deficit in tourism of 15 billion pounds. Now you build more capacity, more people are going to leave the country aren't they? The sums aren't very difficult to work out.It is often argued that we need more capacity because of the tourism industry, well actually the tourism industry is leaving the country and spending money elsewhere, so I don't think that works.When my committee started criticising the Government – and looking very hard at the way that they had approached all of this, we discovered that actually there had been very very little work done on who was going to be doing all this extra flying around, and ministers kept repeating the mantra, you know, this Government is not a Government that is going to price people off planes' – they haven‘t worked out who the people were.Whether the 50% roughly who don't fly at all at the moment were suddenly going to start flying a lot, or whether given the increased capacity, the 50% who do fly a lot are simply going to fly more and go to their homes in the South of France ... no analysis has been done about who was actually going to be creating this additional demand, and I think that is a terrible weakness.I mean these are huge decisions, these are decisions which are going to affect the landscape and the environment for hundreds if not thousands of years, they are going to affect communities, they are going to affect where jobs are created, they are going to affect all sorts of infrastructure and to do that without actually working out who is this for, I think is extraordinary.

Commentary

There's no doubt that a host of impacts were considered by the DfT during the process, but not it appears ways of mitigating the growth in demand for airtravel.

Mike Fawcett

A lot of the assessment work was of a wide range of environmental impacts, both at the global level of what would be the effect on total levels of emissions of greenhouse gases, through to the effects locally of particular development options on a wide range of different factors – both the sort of natural environment, the built environment, factors affecting people, like noise, factors affecting communities, severance, and effects on sort of landscapes and views, effects on things like sort of water supplies, I'm not sure I remember all of them – a wide range of factors and then trying to bring that together into a sort of holistic assessment of different options.

Peter Ainsworth

We moved away from a predict and provide approach, or thought we had, towards road building.Demand for driving cars is virtually limitless. It is mitigated by price, but is virtually limitless and if you try to meet that demand you will end up with a whole country one big piece of asphalt – covered in cars that aren't moving because there is a traffic jam.So we moved away from that, we don't seem to have a Government at the moment that is prepared to move away from predict and provide when it comes to aviation and that is a mind set, I think that's a mind set within the Department of Transport and it needs to change.

End transcript: Leading up to the white paper (28 minutes 31 seconds)

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5.3.5 Where should the new airport capacity be located?

While the ‘Future of Aviation’ consultation was going on and various stakeholders were coming to terms with the associated reports, the DfT also initiated seven Regional Air Service (RAS) studies, to assess the possible locations for airport capacity expansion and to evaluate the various economic, social and environmental impacts. These regional studies did not take into account the responses from national consultation, but were entirely based on the estimates of passenger numbers and on the ‘Valuing the External Costs’ approach proposed by the December 2000 documents.

One of these RAS studies was the South East and East Regional Air Service (SERAS) study which was announced in March 1999. Figure 21 shows the geographical coverage of the SERAS study. Right from the start, SERAS was considered to have a significantly greater challenge compared to the other regional studies. The South East has the largest airports in the UK, is considered to be the country’s economic powerhouse and has the highest population density. Crucially, approximately 80 per cent of UK passenger traffic has an origin or destination in the South East of England (DfT, 2002).

Figure 21 Location of South East region within which the SERAS study was based

Any decision on airport expansion would need to consider the South East very seriously. The only other area identified for significant expansion was the West Midlands where the main options were a brand new airport between Rugby and Coventry, or expansion at Birmingham and the East Midlands airports. In the rest of the country, the Regional Air Service studies outlined a policy of making full use of existing airport capacity.

SERAS included a comprehensive scoping, evaluation and decision-making framework to deal with the difficult issues specifically related to the South East of England. The approach was based on a relatively recent development by the UK government under the umbrella of ‘multi-modal studies’. This involved an explicit analysis of the interactions between all modes of travel and between land use and transport. Investments in infrastructure, services and policy were given equal weighting and were evaluated against environmental, safety and economic impacts. The studies were undertaken by independent consultants with a wide range of skills and submitted to the relevant government body. As this methodology was developed for land surface travel, the Regional Air Service studies had to develop their own particular approach.

5.3.6 The SERAS process

The specific aim of the SERAS process was to examine the various airport expansion options for the South East over the next 30 years. Figure 22 shows the location of the existing and proposed airports in the South East of England.

Figure 22 Location of existing and planned airports within the South East of England according to SERAS, also showing the county boundaries within which these are situated

Each site was assessed according to the following three categories:

• no development beyond that already envisaged in the land-use planning system
• development of airport terminal capacity to make full use of existing runway capacity
• development of additional runway and terminal capacity.

Another significant component of the framework was that any airport development had to be seen to be funded by the private sector, so the interests shown by businesses were going to play a major role in influencing the location of the expansion.

The framework was implemented in five stages within SERAS:

• a search for sites (Stage 0)
• a selection of various site combinations to accommodate the various capacity forecasts (Stage 1)
• an appraisal of the options (Stage 2)
• more detailed studies on the most promising options (Stage 3)
• and finally, the making of a case for the most favourable options (Stage 4).

The aim of Stage 0 was not only to look for expansion of capacity within existing airports, but also to look for new sites within the South East which could accommodate a major new airport. Expansion on the existing airports was seen to be increasingly problematic due to the high surrounding population densities (chiefly Heathrow) and the repeated promises that no further expansion would occur after several major developments in the 1980s and 1990s.

Figure 23 ‘See, if we just extend this runway to Manchester, then we don’t actually have to take off at all, thereby cutting emissions and saving fuel…’

The most promising new site was identified at Cliffe in North Kent, which was proposed as a major international ‘hub’ airport with a total of four runways, compared to Heathrow’s two. This would provide a significant amount of capacity in an area with very low population density. The site would be situated on a marsh on the edge of the Thames estuary and would involve construction over several nature reserves.

Stage 1 then went on to identify the feasibility of development on existing and new sites. This analysed the sites on an individual basis, while Stage 2 went on to combine the various sites so as to identify the options with the lowest cost-benefit ratio.

In Stage 3, the most promising options were selected for further analysis. An attempt was made to first identify the level of environmental impact, and then to quantify the environmental costs of expansion. These included a consideration of the effect of noise, local air quality and global warming and how these could be ‘paid for’ by increasing air fares. Other factors considered in Stage 3 included surface transport, safety, land-and property-take, heritage, ecology, landscape, urbanisation and employment. This resulted in revisions to runway layouts, supporting infrastructure and recalculation of expected capacity for the various options.

The SERAS framework made no attempt to balance the environmental and economic impacts, or find a compromise between the various stakeholders at national and local level. Its aim was to reveal the objective ‘facts’ on airport expansion within the South East of England, and for these to be assessed in a regional consultation, and eventually, by government ministers.

Table 2 shows the resulting cost–benefit analysis for the various options. (The ‘cost–benefit analysis’ technique is explained in the pdf below.)

The central objective of SERAS was to provide a robust financial appraisal of various expansion options that would ultimately allow a monetary comparison and a decision on the most cost-effective option. Economic and financial appraisal was conducted over the period to 2030, so that the effect of increasing airport capacity could be assessed year by year over the life of the new infrastructure.

In order to compare options, a number of assumptions were made about how each new runway scheme might be taken forward. Outline layout plans were produced for terminal and other facilities as well as an assessment of the road and rail infrastructure needed to support the airport development. A date for the opening of each runway was assumed. The capacity of different airport options was estimated and forecasts produced of how many passengers would use the new facilities. This enabled an estimation of the cost of construction and a measure of the impacts on people and the environment. For example, meeting the costs of carbon dioxide emissions would increase the costs within the cost–benefit analysis by about £1 billion (Cliffe), £1.5 billion (Stansted, three runways) and £2.5 billion (Heathrow, one runway, and Stansted, two runways).

The SERAS study also used the Federal Aviation Administration methodology for calculating the economic benefits of aviation expansion. Direct impacts were estimated by assessing the increased economic activity occurring at the airport such as the increase in employment and sales of merchandise. Indirect impacts were estimated by looking at the expansion of industries and businesses which contribute directly to the airport’s operation (e.g. hotels servicing airline pilots and stewards, aircraft maintenance, airline catering, etc.). Finally, induced impacts were estimated by assessing the effects of the ‘chain reaction’ as the cash injection resulting from the direct and indirect impacts stimulates the general economic activity. One can imagine the difficulties in quantifying these benefits, especially when attempting to make predictions several decades into the future. Once again, many of the same assumptions used to calculate an increase in passenger numbers in the SPASM simulation were also used here to estimate the economic benefits of airport expansion. Note that the predicted capacity requirement in the South East by 2030 was 300 million passengers per annum, i.e. SPASM assumptions included no options for redistributing capacity to other UK airports.

The original SERAS study did not include Gatwick airport. In 1979, the then state controlled British Airports Authority (now BAA PLC) came to an agreement with West Sussex County Council to not build another airport runway before 2019. Thus the original SERAS study omitted Gatwick on the grounds that the probability of expansion there was very low. This assumption was challenged by the county councils within which the Stansted and Cliffe expansion options are situated, and they took the DfT to court. In November 2002, the court judge made the ruling that options for expansion at Gatwick airport should not be excluded from the process.

Activity 22 Comparing qualitative and quantitative assessment of impact

As a practical illustration of the non-quantifiable components of the SERAS analysis, I would like you to focus on two contrasting options. The first is Stansted, which already has one runway and, with its existing infrastructure, has the potential to handle up to 25 million passengers per year. Cliffe, on the other hand, is a totally new site with the need to construct everything – from runways to terminals to the supporting transport network – from scratch.

Below you will see two OS maps, one of the Stansted region and one of the Cliffe region. On the right of each image you will see the planned runway developments, including the land-take (one runway for Stansted; two runways at Cliffe by 2015 and a further two by 2030). Data is also provided on the impact on the ecology, heritage, noise, water, air quality and employment.

Compare the data on the two sites for development by 2015 (i.e. one new runway for Stansted and two new runways at Cliffe). Consider how important these various qualitatively-assessed impacts are to you, and provide a rating from low to medium to high impact for each of the two sites. (You may find this easier if you draw a table.) What criteria did you use to make these evaluations? What difficulties has this exercise presented to you?

Taking into account all the impacts in your table, and the relevant cost–benefit analysis and the envisaged total capacity by 2030, which of these two sites would you choose for development?

Stansted region

Figure 24(a) OS map of the Stansted region, with the existing airport marked

Figure 24(b) The proposed runway expansions in the Stansted region

Impacts on people and the environment

Land and Property

Construction of the airport would result in the following:

• the area of the airport would increase from 9.5 km² today to 16.5 km² (one runway) 19 km² (two runways) or 22 km² (three runways)
• just over 100 (one runway) or 200 (two/three runways) residential properties would need to be physically taken
• 700 ha (one runway) or 1200 ha (two/three runways) of high grade agricultural land would be lost
• encroachment onto 457 ha (one runway), 683 ha (two runways) or 747 ha (three runways) of the Stansted Airport Countryside Protection Zone.

Heritage

Two Scheduled Ancient Monuments – the site of Waltham Manor and The Grange – are lost in all three options.

A third – the site of the medieval Takeley Priory at Warish Hall – might be lost in the three runway option.

One Grade II* listed building is lost in the two and three new runway options.

A number of Grade II listed buildings are lost in each option as follows: 29 (one new runway); 50 (two new runways); or 64 (three new runways).

Ecology

The two or three runway options would result in the loss of about half of the Elsenham Wood SSSI.

Water

All options require engineering work, diverting or culverting, to several rivers. The Environment Agency is generally opposed to culverting and such works are seen as a significant impact.

The extra passengers associated with additional runways add to the demand for water which may be difficult to meet, even with supply and demand management and water saving technology.

Daytime Noise

Tables 3 and 4 (below) show the areas and numbers of people exposed to different amounts of aircraft noise based on an average 16 hour day (0700-2300).

Table 6 Size of area exposed to aircraft noise based on an average day

Size of area affected (Km2)
2000			2015			2030
Level of Noise Leq(dBA)		Base Case	Maximum Use	1 new runway	Maximum use	1 new runway	2 new runways	3 new runways
>54	92	46	74	127	87	214	326	393
>57	53	28	43	79	50	127	191	228
>60	33	16	25	42	30	76	111	136
>63	20	10	15	23	18	40	63	78
>66	13	5	9	13	10	23	35	42
>69	8	3	5	7	6	13	20	25
>72	4	2	3	4	3	7	12	15

Table 7 Number of people exposed to aircraft noise based on an average day

Numbers of people affected ('000s)
2000			2015			2030
Level of Noise Leq(dBA)		Base Case	Maximum Use	1 new runway	Maximum use	1 new runway	2 new runways	3 new runways
>54	13	5	9	15	12	27	42	50
>57	6	2	5	8	6	14	24	28
>60	2	1	2	4	2	7	10	14
>63	1	0.3	0.8	3	1	4	6	7
>66	0.5	0.1	0.3	2	0.3	3	3	4
>69	0.2		0.1	0.4	0.2	2	2	3
>72	0.1					0.4	0.7	2

Air Quality

Population exposed to an exceedance of EU limits:

• PM₁₀ – nil
• NO₂ – there are estimated to be small numbers of people exposed to an exceedance of NO₂ – just over 300 by 2030 in the largest option (with three new runways) and about 20 by 2015 with one new runway. It is likely that such impacts could in practice be prevented.

Employment

Table 8 Forecast of employment ('000s)

Forecast of employment ('000s)
1998		2015			2030
		Maximum Use	1 new runway	Maximum use	1 new runway	2 new runways	3 new runways
Direct on-site	7	12	39	12	37	48	61
Direct off-site	1	2	7	2	6	9	11
Indirect	2	5	14	4	13	17	21
Total	10	20	60	18	56	74	93

Table 5 shows that the employment generated by the airport in 1998 was around 10,000 jobs. The runway options appraised could increase these totals to around 60,000 jobs by 2015 and between 57,000 and 93,000 jobs by 2030.

The current core catchment area is Uttlesford, East Hertfordshire and Harlow districts. A wider catchment area, potentially embracing Braintree, Chelmsford, Harlow, Broxbourne, Epping Forest and North East London would need to be considered for the larger options.

The potential employment growth is large in relation to the Government's projections of total employment growth in the core and wider catchment areas (of 45,000 jobs to 2015 and 74,000 jobs to 2030). RPG provision, projected forward, could result in an additional 83,000 houses in the core and wider catchment area to 2030.

Meeting the additional labour demand associated with new runways would require a sectoral shift in current employment patterns (from the low base of 5 per cent of current core catchment area jobs being at the airport), attracting some employees from more distant areas (in the Lea Valley, for example) and additional development, requiring a change in current planning policies.

Cliffe region

Figure 25(a) OS map of the Cliffe region

Figure 25(b) The proposed runways in the Cliffe region

Impacts on people and the environment

Land and Property

Construction of the airport would result in the following:

• the airport would cover a total of about 26 km² (including extensive cargo and maintenance facilities)
• around 1100 residential properties, some of which are holiday homes, would need to be physically taken (half a dozen more with the crosswind runway)
• around 2000 ha of agricultural land would be lost (2200 ha with the crosswind runway).

Heritage

Based on the layout of the new airport developed for SERAS, one Grade 1 – the Church of All Saints at Allhallows – one Grade II* and seven Grade II (eight if the crosswind runway is also built) listed buildings would be lost.

Ecology

A new airport at Cliffe would impact on several nationally and internationally designated areas, notably the Thames Estuary and Marshes Special Protection Area (SPA) and the Northward Hill Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)/National Nature Reserve.

The Thames Estuary and Marshes SPA and Ramsar site (of very high ecological value) is a site of international importance for birds, flora and fauna and is given protection laid out in the EC Habitats Directive. Any potentially adverse effect to that site would require the Government to demonstrate that it has considered all reasonable alternatives and that compensatory measures will be carried forward to prevent an overall loss of habitat and bird numbers. One possibility could be land purchase and habitat creation elsewhere in Kent. Potential sites have been considered and discussed with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and English Nature. Preliminary cost estimates are in the order of £200 million.

The presence of large bird populations raises the risk of birds colliding with aircraft which is an important safety issue for any airport. A preliminary assessment was made of this risk at Cliffe. The consultants noted the potentially significant hazards of the Cliffe location and identified some options for mitigating the risks in the design and layout of the airport and in measures in the surrounding area. They acknowledge that further research would be needed to assess fully both the risk and the best mitigating measures. The Department will be commissioning work during the consultation period.

Water

Options at Cliffe generate High Adverse impacts against all the water objectives, except groundwater.

The topography of the site requires a level platform area to be created on up to 15 metres of fill over the low lying marshes. A number of marshes and creeks would effectively be destroyed.

While the raised airport platform will solve any flooding problems in the airport itself, it is likely to increase the risk of flooding elsewhere on the peninsula.

The extra passengers associated with a new airport would add to the demand for water which may be difficult to meet, even with supply and demand management and water saving technology.

Daytime Noise

Table 9 Size of area exposed to different amounts of aircraft noise based on an average 16 hour day

Size of area affected (Km2)
Level of Noise Leq (dBA)	2015 (2 runways)	2030 (4 runways)
>54	79	176
>57	57	111
>60	44	75
>63	25	56
>66	14	38
>69	7	20
>72	4	11

Table 10 Number of people exposed to different amounts of aircraft noise based on an average 16 hour day

Numbers of people affected ('000s)
Level of Noise Leq (dBA)	2015 (2 runways)	2030 (4 runways)
>54	11	32
>57	4	14
>60	3	9
>63	1	5
>66	0.3	3
>69	0.2	0.4
>72

Air Quality

No population is forecast to be exposed to exceedances of EU limits for either NO₂ or PM₁₀.

Employment

Table 11 Forecast of employment ('000s)

Forecast of employment ('000s)
	2015 2 runways	2030 3 runways
Direct on-site	35	52
Direct off-site	6	9
Indirect	12	18
Total	53	79

The core labour catchment area for a new airport at Cliffe is taken to include boroughs on both sides of the Thames estuary: Medway Towns, Gravesham and Dartford in Kent and Thurrock, Castle Point, Southend-on-Sea, Basildon and Rochford in Essex. This area currently provides around 100,000 more workers than jobs.

A large airport at Cliffe will provide a large number of jobs across the skill spectrum in a regional and national priority area for regeneration and in close proximity to a labour force where unemployment and out-commuting rates are high.

Discussion

This activity asks for your own assessment of these impacts, so my response may well be different from yours.

Table 12 Example of projected impact of new runways

	Stansted – one new runway	Cliffe – two runways
Noise	high impact	medium
Land/heritage	high	medium
Ecology	medium	high
Local air quality	medium	low
Water	high	high
Employment	medium	high

The criteria I used differed for the various impacts. For noise and local air quality it was the total number of people affected; for land/heritage it was the number of historical buildings destroyed (I assumed residential buildings had low historical value); for ecology it was the rarity of the habitats (wetlands are critically endangered habitats); for water it was the scale of disruption; and for employment it was the number of people gaining employment.

The difficulty I found was the lack of information: for example, how was noise impact assessed? Personally, I would find evening noise significantly more annoying than at other times of day but the pattern through the day was not known.

The net benefit of Stansted (one runway) is £7.1 billion, providing 249 million passengers per annum capacity. For Cliffe (four runways) the figures are £8.5 billion and 315 million passengers. (For Cliffe there is a difficulty in comparing the quantitative data with the qualitative assessment because official documents only provide data for four runways.) Taking all of this into account, I would choose Cliffe because of the lower impact on noise, land and air quality combined with the better local employment opportunities and the greater passenger capacity. Having said that, I recognise I have a strong bias towards the human and social impacts rather than the ecological ones.

5.3.7 Regional consultation on airport expansion

In July 2002, the DfT issued seven consultation documents representing the UK regions, detailing specific options for where and how airport growth might be accommodated, including the 28 options (24 South East plus 4 other regions) for airport expansion at 14 different locations within the UK. These options and locations were based on the South East and East of England Regional Air Service (SERAS) studies and the Regional Air Service (RAS) studies.

In these regional consultation documents, published collectively as ‘The Future Development of Air Transport in the United Kingdom’, the DfT made a strong case for airport expansion in the South East. It was stated that, for the South East, the expansion would result in £18 billion in direct quantifiable benefits, 80,000 new jobs and low air fares for everyone, while a constraint in development would mean that ‘return fights from the main South East airports, if no new runways were built by 2030, could cost on average around £100 more than today’. The figure of £18 billion is linked to an estimated capacity for the South East of 300 million passengers per annum. Note that even at this stage the pressure was very much on to meet the full capacity requirements as estimated in the SPASM modelling, with limited consideration of the responses to the original national consultation.

Interested public and organisational stakeholders were invited to make their views known on the seven consultation documents, via text responses to questions contained within the documents, or via the tick boxes of a summary National Opinion Poll questionnaire (internet- and paper-based).

Overall there were just under 500,000 responses, although the bulk (437,000) came through organised campaigns and/or petitions, with the South East providing 300,000 responses. The overwhelming message from the consultation was of opposition to airport expansion on the grounds of noise, air pollution, road congestion, loss of land and impact on the environment, wildlife and local community, yet business interests made a strong case for expansion based on socio-economic grounds.

Activity 23 Reading and listening to responses to the SERAS consultation

The audio programme, Consultation within the white paper, includes an outline of the consultation process as described by Department for Transport personnel, interviews with a selection of stakeholders made during this consultation phase and a critique of the process.

The readings below are the official responses to the SERAS consultation from five major organisations with an interest in airport expansion in the South East of England.

Read through the readings and make brief notes in your learning journal on the different responses described. Then listen to Consultation within the white paper and add to your notes by describing the other responses heard.

Extracts from BAA’s publication Responsible growth

BAA (British Airports Authority) owns and operates seven UK airports and also has stakes in several overseas airports. They are ‘the world’s leading airport company’.

The future development of air transport from SEEDA(23 minutes 28 seconds)

The South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) is one of eight regional development agencies in the UK. They are ‘responsible for the sustainable economic development and regeneration of the South East of England – the driving force of the UK’s economy’.

Proposed response to the Government’s revised consultation on air transport in the UK from Wandsworth Borough Council

Wandsworth Borough is in South West London and has a population of a little over a quarter of a million. It is one of 32 London boroughs. Wandsworth Borough Council is the local government body responsible for services within the borough.

Stansted: the case against irresponsible growth from Stop Stansted Expansion Group of North West Essex and East Herts Preservation Association

Stop Stansted Expansion is a campaigning group opposed to the expansion of Stansted Airport. Their main objective is: ‘To contain the development of Stansted Airport within tight limits that are truly sustainable and, in this way, to protect the quality of life of residents over wide areas of Essex, Hertfordshire and Suffolk, to preserve our heritage and to protect the natural environment.’

The future development of air transport in the UK from the British Chambers of Commerce

Most UK towns and cities have a local Chamber of Commerce whose membership comprises local businessmen and women. They seek to represent the interests and support the competitiveness and growth of all businesses in their communities and regions. British Chambers of Commerce is the national collective of these groups. ‘The British Chambers of Commerce comprise a national network of quality-accredited Chambers of Commerce, all uniquely positioned at the heart of every business community in the UK and representing more than 135,000 businesses of all sizes in all sectors of the economy – equivalent to five million jobs.’

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Transcript: Consultation within the white paper

Consultation within the White Paper

Commentary

Once the preparatory studies to inform the white paper consultation were over it was time for the Department for Transport to put the show on the road. The regional consultation took place between July 2002 and 2003. Chris Cain and Mike Fawcett of the Airport Policy division recall the process:

Chris Cain

I remember four months of travelling round the country in a bit of a bandwagon – we had about eight or ten public exhibitions including, in some cases, quite major exhibitions in a small village in the Midlands. There was a proposal for a new site option in the Midlands and there were several additional exhibitions in the South East.We tried to set them up in locations which would be accessible for the people who would be affected by the proposals to come and have the opportunity to talk to Government officials and the consultants who'd been helping us to prepare the options and the analysis, so that they could ask questions to better inform any submissions they then made. We also ran a whole series of seminars for stakeholder groups organised in different regional levels, and I think there was probably about forty or fifty of those. There were questionnaire surveys, the information was made available extensively on the department's website, an awful lot of people were sent summary documents, we tried to advertise through the papers, we tried to make it as open and as widespread, in terms of awareness, as we possibly could, and use it as a vehicle to introduce people to the issues and where they could find more information. So that when, ultimately, they came to respond to the various consultation documents, they could do so on a well-informed basis.

Mike Fawcett

And this was something that was obviously happening at a number of different levels. I mean, on the one hand, you might be in one of these exhibitions – you might find yourself talking to a local resident who was just an ordinary member of the public – but you might also in especially in the seminars for stakeholders have a sort of quite in-depth technical, highly-informed discussion, so it was a consultation on a number of different levels.We tried to structure the material so that we were presenting the sort of basic proposition and basic options clearly, that, with supporting analysis in depth for those who wanted that and could use it, so it was bit like an onion skin in some ways – almost as painful too!Although in the consultation documents we didn't set out the full range of options we'd looked at, the reports on the formulating of options were all available in sort of hard copy and on the website so that if people wanted to sort of get more information, even on options that were not being put forward, they could see that and see the comparative appraisals had been done.

Commentary

In March 2003, we interviewed some of the stakeholders who were party to the consultation at Stansted. What follows is what they had to say about the consultation when it was in full flow.Even then it was clear to some stakeholders that, while the technical discussions on the various options may have taken place at a range of levels, some of the options put to the regions to consider were being seen as options for expansion of aviation nationally, which would have impacts way beyond the regions being consulted.Mark McClennan, an independent environmental and aviation consultant, described the options on the table for the Stansted consultation:

Mark McClennan

Nationally, there are various options and the consultation exercise deals initially with regional options.The South East is arguably the most pressing in terms of the allocation of those options, because traditionally that's where the big airports have grown, in the South East of England, so obviously we're considering Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, but also potential new airport options.The role of Stansted in all this is critical, in so far that the Government consultation options provide the consideration for up to three new runways, which is a huge potential expansion.The addition of a single runway to an airport is a huge expansion all by itself, so new runways are potentially now proposed for Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted; now that sort of increase in infrastructure is a huge project and clearly has very significant environmental and social consequences, so in consideration of that huge increase in capacity, clearly there has to be a number of questions asked about what that will do, both positively and negatively – both regionally and what effect that will have nationally.There's an interesting debate now about how much regional aviation should be accommodated, so if you live in the North West of England, the North East of England, the Midlands, ought those regions not to provide more facilities and capacity for residents rather than having people as traditionally has been the case in England, travel to the South East to make their journeys abroad?

Commentary

The stakeholders taking part in the consultation represented various different interest groups, each of whom brought their own agenda to the process.Natalie Blaken represented the East of England Development Agency.

Natalie Blaken

Airports are a fundamental piece of infrastructure for a modern economy, they're a clear economic driver, for economic growth particularly in the East of England where we have a strong knowledge-based economy.The second point of that is that it is a catalyst for job growth, although generally in the East of England we are doing very well there are particular areas within our regions which do suffer from economic need, and are identified as priority areas for economic regeneration, and these particularly relate to places like Harlow, the Lea valley and Luton and Dunstable, which have locations close to airports.In terms of economic growth as well, airports do provide an attractive inward investment offer; if we can offer more international connections then clearly it provides an additional offer to businesses, and we also need to provide for freight and cargo for our businesses.So there are four primary drivers there which would necessitate airport expansion.

Commentary

But not everybody agreed about the economic benefits to the region that expansion at Stansted would bring. Mark McClennan again:

Mark McClennan

The current setup at Stansted probably provides fairly robust capacity to provide regional needs. The problem comes when as part of the London airport system, Stansted will be considered as an important contributor to that overall system in the South East and nationally. Then the arguments start that well, increased capacity at Stansted don't bring necessarily with them important economic ingredients; it could be argued that the region currently is well off economically and therefore doesn't really need new transport links, but I think the reality is that Stansted is being considered as part of potentially increasing national capacity, and I think the debate at Stansted needs to take place in that context.

Commentary

Certainly some regional stakeholders felt that the impacts of expansion aimed at increasing national capacity had no justification regionally.Norman Mead was the General Secretary of Stop Stansted Expansion:

Norman Mead

The wider aspect is of induced development: the impact of that on the rural areas here.Airport development on the one hand and what it will induce, what it will need to accommodate all the people it employs from the airport expansion itself, from Mr Prescott's perishing pre-fabs as some people call them, the quarter of a million low cost houses that have got to be accommodated somewhere in this area, all of this we feel would have a very adverse affect on an area of low unemployment, and high economic activity. We're not a depressed area at all; we're a successful area, in many senses – why do we need all this?

Commentary

Even those promoting the benefits of airport expansion recognised that these had to be balanced with any environmental consequences. Natalie Blaken again:

Natalie Blaken

The East of England Development Agency is looking to maximise the economic and social benefits of airport expansion. But certainly within environmental constraints, we're not promoting growth at any cost.We have been speaking to businesses within the regions who are very keen to secure the quality of environment they have at the moment. They live and work within the region and the quality of environment that we offer in the East of England is very important in terms of attracting inward investment, so it's not growth at any cost, and it has to be assessed against all the remits of sustainable development.So from the East of England Development Agency's point of view, we haven't gone for full growth at all of the airports – we have taken a view as to what are the economic and social benefits of airport expansion, measured against those environmental consequences.

Commentary

But there was no getting away from the fact that the environmental consequences of airport expansion on the scale being considered at Stansted would be vast. Mark McClennan:

Mark McClennan

There's no doubt that the expansion of any airport, the provision of any significant new infrastructural development like a runway or a terminal, brings with it very significant environmental consequences.We're looking at very major development projects here, so the development itself is going to cause ecological landscape issues. The issues that local people will be most concerned with of course is the increase in noise, and potential consequences on local air quality. And there can be no argument that, with expanded airports, with new runways, those problems become more severe, and those are problems which clearly need to be addressed, as a consequence of, and a significance of that expansion.

Commentary

As well as the environmental impacts on people from noise and pollution, Norman Mead was also concerned about the impacts on heritage and biodiversity in the area around Stansted.

Norman Mead

If you take the standard environmental features, heritage features of Uttlesford – be they listed buildings, conservation areas, areas of landscape value areas, listed lanes, protected hedgerows, all of those things – and you tot them up, and you do the same for the other 14 districts of Essex, this district of Uttlesford is either top of the list or in second place on every count and it does give a measure of what is at risk, the irreplaceable assets of our heritage, that will be wiped away.Current proposals here wipe away 64 listed buildings for a start; just like that. And Hatfield Forest on the perimeter of all this would be untenable as a recreational area, a scientific area which it is, a site of special scientific value, those are the irreplaceable assets which are at risk in Uttlesford.

Mark McClennan

I think the problem with local arguments is that they end up in 'not in my back yard' NIMBY-type arguments. And my advice and I think my view on local participation in the debate and the consultation is 'be involved', I think it really makes a difference that local voices are heard both at local and national level, but I also would encourage people to think beyond their own backyard.Clearly, most people given a situation where they are going to be subject to increased noise, potential effects on local air quality, property blight, are going to oppose infrastructural development, but I think what's interesting there is that those people have also got to take a view on aviation in general and strategy nationally.So I think there needs to be answers to two questions: if you don't think that new infrastructure should be provided local to Stansted, should that capacity be made available somewhere else, and if so, where should that capacity be?

Norman Mead

We are concerned to protect our local environment here to the point that we are often referred to as NIMBYs and I say, yes of course we are. But it isn't my backyard, it's thousands of backyards that we are protecting here, and this has to be taken into account. Locally we know what's at stake and we are defending it. Nationally, we work with others, there's an organisation, Airport Watch, which is under the Airport Environment Federation in London, and we meet periodically and discuss what emerge as joint problems – the proposals for major inland airports, be they here, Gatwick, Heathrow, Cliff, Coventry. It is a matter I think of sustainability at the end of the day. As you well know that's a very hackneyed word, and I always recite something that came from the Department for the Environment. It's a matter of balancing environmental impacts with economic advantage – and importantly giving a positive legacy of opportunity and quality of life for future generations.I think all these things are there when one talks about sustainability.It may well be that no options are sustainable in the true sense of those words.

Commentary

So even as the consultation process itself was under way, some stakeholders were already signalling that the debate should have been national rather than regional. Mark McClennan again:

Mark McClennan

It's really a national debate on the role of aviation generally; is aviation technology a good idea? If it's a good idea is it a good idea to make it widely and cheaply accessible? If that is a good idea to have cheap, very easily accessible aviation, what impacts does that have both economically and environmentally and socially?

Commentary

Regional pressure groups like Stop Stansted Expansion had begun to marshal arguments questioning the assumptions for growth which had been used in the options presented to the consultation. Norman Mead:

Norman Mead

The industry does not recover its external costs completely. People are concerned that it pays no VAT on aircraft fuel, on aircraft purchases, on aircraft spares, and on anything that operates on the air side of an airport.They're concerned that it pays no environmental tax at all. They are concerned that the current figures are artificially influenced by the cheap flight airlines, and do not see the economics of that in the long term, so we feel that the demand has been artificially stimulated by these cheap flights. The bubble may well burst and thus we feel we should look very much more closely at the figures quoted here over the next few years.But nonetheless we recognise that demand will increase. Ee're saying, make best use of present facilities as stage one, and here, this worries us a bit, because the Government's declared policy is the full use of all of all existing facilities before any new runways are built, and we're concerned and we're waiting to see the impact of the 25 million passengers-worth of activity that is currently authorised here, let alone the 40 that will come from the full use of the single runway.

Commentary

The pressures on the Government from those outside the regional consultation were fast becoming apparent to Mark McClennan.

Mark McClennan

Industry has responded with a very large lobbying effort to Government under the banner of Freedom to Fly, where it's pointed out in no uncertain terms to Government the benefits that the industry feels that it brings, and the requirement that it has for new infrastructure capacity.So that coalition, organisations like the CBI, are making very strident noises to Government that this new airport capacity, particularly in the South East is required, they recognise that it brings with it environmental issues, they want those issues to be recognised and managed, but nevertheless to press full steam ahead on wholesale development.At the other end of the debate, and I would take Jonathan Porritt and Forum for the Future as good examples of this position, which would say that predict and provide is thoroughly discredited, if aviation were to take this strategy on board it would be a fallacious strategy and indeed, what Forum for the Future would be suggesting is a much more targeted demand-managed led approach, which would very much look at the current economics of the way aviation operates and it would argue that at the moment the industry does not pay it's external environmental costs – and I think a lot of debate is about if and how the industry can do that.Much is made of the fact that the industry is exempt from aviation fuel tax, and it's in fact very unlikely that, there'll ever be agreement on aviation fuel tax, but leaving that aside, there are many other mechanisms that could be brought into place, which would ensure that aviation would meet those environmental costs, and I think that's going to be a very important part of the debate, and is certain to be considered in the White Paper.

Commentary

So after the consultation had wound up and the White Paper finally landed, how did the critics react?Peter Ainsworth MP – chair of the Commons Environmental Audit committee – questions the value of the whole consultation process.

Peter Ainsworth

I think what happened was that the prompt that got the whole Aviation White Paper process under way was the industry's desire to grow and to meet demand, and as a result it was that purpose which the entire process was set up to serve.And one wonders about the value of a consultation when the direction that the Government was clearly taking was so set, the course was so set already that actually it was going to be, always going to be virtually impossible for anyone who wanted to shift the trajectory in a different direction to make any impact at all, and so we had a huge cumbersome regional consultation process around an issue where I think the mindset had already gelled before the thing got under way.

Commentary

Richard Dyer, Aviation Officer for Friends of the Earth, agrees that a lengthy and detailed consultation process – which elicited a vast response – in the end seems to have had no bearing on the outcome of the White Paper itself.

Richard Dyer

I think the Government could have been more honest about the issues like the economics.The fact that there is a down side to aviation growth and a vast number of people did reply to the consultation. I believe it was the largest response ever seen to a public consultation. And many of those would be we know were raising big concerns about the Government's approach which not much notice seems to have been taken of that in the government's thinking in the White Paper.They talked broadly about wanting to make aviation sustainable before the White Paper was published, but there is not really a lot of evidence of that in the finished article. It's pretty much a predict and promote because the government doesn't directly provide the infrastructure so we call it predict and promote. They actually forecast the growth and pretty much decided to meet all of it, which is a very different approach to the one they traditionally had applied to road transport, where demand management isn't really an effective sort of plank of public policy.If you recalculate the growth projections based on aviation fuel being taxed and VAT being added to aviation, which isn't paid at the moment, you see dramatically different growth figures and the Government's own computer model shows that. And they did those calculations before the White Paper was published, but there was no mention of that process or those new projections in the White Paper itself.That could have been a choice that people had to make in the consultation, because the figures were so dramatically different for including those assumptions about taxation that it actually meant that no runways would need to be built. But those choices weren't presented to people in the consultation – if we applied fair taxation to aviation we would be looking at a completely different story.

End transcript: Consultation within the white paper

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5.4 The December 2003 Aviation White Paper

The various studies and consultations produced a mountain of information and opinion, which the DfT had to weave into a single strategy document for the future of UK’s aviation over the next 30 years. The SERAS framework and other studies had little to say on how to balance the interests of various stakeholders from the national to the local and the environmental to the economic. Finding a balance between environmental and economic impacts, and various stakeholder groups, was left to the political process. A team of government ministers, headed by the then Minister for Transport, Alistair Darling, had access to all the information and applied a range of weightings to the various studies and consultation responses. The minutes of the ministerial meetings, including the weightings applied, were still confidential in 2005.

The process outlined so far clearly shows that options had already been limited even before the government officials began drafting the white paper. Decisions had already been made to accept unlimited passenger growth, and that the bulk of this growth should be accommodated within the South East of England. Thus the only major decision to be made at this stage was exactly where to site the expansion: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted or a new airport at Cliffe? Even here, it is difficult to identify a clear rationale for the final decision. The final decision contained within the Aviation White Paper was made behind closed doors by government ministers and their advisers.

Figure 26 Aviation White Paper Decision-Making Simulator

These were the final recommendations:

In summary, the decision making was principally driven by data generated by the DfT reports (e.g. the ‘Air Traffic Forecasts for the United Kingdom’ and ‘Valuing the External Costs of Aviation’ reports) and regional studies (SERAS and the other RAS), and involved a series of national and regional consultations and direct lobbying by a range of stakeholders. The data and decisions made by DfT were contested (and supported) by a vast range of stakeholders during the consultation process, by directly lobbying the government and through the media. It is very difficult to identify the influence of these consultations and pressures on the decision-making process. For example, the final decision does not actually reflect the data proposed by the SERAS study – Heathrow was never considered for development in 2018, and thus there is no cost-benefit data available for this particular decision.

It is clear that at a national level the pro-expansion lobby got exactly what it wanted, while some of the anti-expansion lobby attained minor victories at local level (e.g. no airport at Cliffe). Although potential impacts of airport development at Cliffe were estimated to be the lowest to the local population of all expansion options, development at Cliffe would have affected a nature reserve with a high density of bird species. It is interesting to note here that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is by far the most powerful environmental NGO in Europe, with a membership of well over one million, far outstripping any other national environmental NGO.

The Aviation White Paper sets a policy framework for airport development but it did not in itself authorise such development, as discussed in Box 5. Developments on the scale of airport expansion are subject to legislation such as Environmental Impact Assessment. In terms of legislation linked to the Aviation White Paper, a Regulatory Impact Assessment was carried out as part of the same process and was also published in December 2003. Subsequently, the Civil Aviation Bill, introduced to the House of Commons in June 2005, implemented some of the commitments of the 2003 white paper. It set out to clarify and strengthen the measures available to deal with aircraft noise and the powers of airports to set charges reflecting local emissions of pollutants from aircraft.

5.5 Reaction to the Aviation White Paper

The immediate reaction by the aviation industry was highly favourable. It was clearly apparent that almost all of the demands of the aviation industry had been met. Andrew Cahn, British Airways director of government affairs, was quoted in the 17 December 2003 issue of The Guardian newspaper as saying: ‘I have to say, we’re pretty delighted ’.

On the other hand the majority of the organisations representing environmental perspectives accused the government of abdicating its environmental responsibilities. The climate change targets for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions were not tackled at all while the procedures for payments of environmental impacts were left unclear. Who, for example, was going to get the 5p per passenger per flight for the noise impacts? How was the £20 levy on ticket prices going to cover the permanent climate change damage of greenhouse gas emissions?

Activity 24 Critique of the white paper

Listen to the audio programme titled Critique of the white paper. This includes the Department for Transport’s account of the final decision and a critique from Peter Ainsworth MP and Richard Dyer of Friends of the Earth.

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Transcript: Critique of the white paper (23 minutes 28 seconds)

Critique of the white paper

BBC Today 08/06/04

Charlotte Green

The Government will be accused today of not taking seriously the environmental threat posed by ever increasing air travel. The criticism will be led by members of the Commons Environmental Audit Committee during a debate on aviation policy...

Jim Naughty

...the Commons Environmental Audit Committee has given the Government a bit of a pasting in its latest report, on aviation policy and global warming, accusing ministers of being irresponsible and intellectually dishonest. Now the Aviation White Paper which was published at the end of last year is debated by...

Commentary

Mike Fawcett was head of the Department for Transport's Airport Policy Division. He was responsible for the production of the White Paper until its publication in December 2003, and he describes its overall strategy.

Mike Fawcett

One of the central decisions in the White Paper was about the amount of development of aviation in the UK over the period to 2030, and that involved a range of developments at airports all round the UK.In some airports – perhaps not so dramatic – it would be a more a sort of incremental development making fuller use of existing runways and adding terminal capacity and taxi-ways and other facilities to cater for increased numbers of passengers. But in other cases, and particularly in the South East I mean we were looking at some very dramatic developments with very large impacts and, in particular, in terms of the sort of number of possible new runways at airports in the South East and that was clearly one of the central decisions that ministers had to take, and in doing that we had to look at the forecast growth of demand, taking account of the fact that we were looking a long way ahead and there are inevitably some degrees of uncertainty in forecasting demand so far ahead. And so we didn't want to pretend that this was a sort of absolute certainty and sort of absolutely rigid. I mean, I think it's fair to say that if the sort of full forecast demand actually materialises, then there would have been an economic argument for perhaps having more capacity – perhaps three new runways in the South East but, as I say, with considerable uncertainties and also, of course, with very large environmental impacts and with the potential for blight of a lot of people, a lot of areas over a very long period.So, in the end, I mean, ministers concluded that it would be sensible to plan for two new runways in the South East because that would give very large economic benefits – there would be a sort of high level of certainty that that level of capacity would be well utilised and, of course the environmental impacts would be less than with three new runways.

Commentary

The Department for Transport team certainly believe strongly that the process that led up to the White Paper was carried out in an objective and rigorous way.Chris Cain managed both the preparatory and regional consultation phases:

Chris Cain

In terms of the various stages, the way we went about it, the material that was put in the public domain – even if different interests didn't necessarily agree with the conclusions, I think that there was actually quite a lot of respect for the way we went about it and the amount and quality of analysis that went into informing the debate and ultimately, obviously, making sure that ministers had the right material to come to conclusions and, if you like, that was the job of the officials and, obviously, people take their own view about the outcome of the White Paper.

Commentary

But Peter Ainsworth who chairs the Commons Environmental Audit Committee feels that despite the elaborate process and consultation, the final decision was highly unsatisfactory:

Peter Ainsworth

Heathrow is one of the world's leading airports, it is where the airlines want to go, and so there was huge pressure from the industry to develop Heathrow, that is what they really wanted, however there are capacity constraints at Heathrow and there are also, as we know, issues to do with the air quality around there.So Stansted comes into the frame because it – there are greater opportunities for expanding, providing you don't mind about the local countryside, quality of life, air quality in that part of Essex, it is on paper easier to expand there.Gatwick is a more constrained site as well, there are physical difficulties about expanding there and of course they have left a question mark hanging over what they are going to do at Gatwick, it all depends on what happens with air quality at Heathrow, which is itself a fairly invidious situation. Another flaw of this whole process is that they went through all the public consultation, they did a huge amount of work, they spent vast quantities of public money on putting together this White Paper and they ended up with a kind of half answer – yes – we are going to do Stansted, might do Heathrow and well if we can't then we will do Gatwick – that's not an answer!

Commentary

The main criticism levelled at the Aviation White Paper was that it failed to address properly the environmental impacts of aviation expansion and in failing to do so was at odds with the Government's own policy on climate change, but Mike Fawcett says that there was extensive consultation with DEFRA, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

Mike Fawcett

I think, the approach that the Government took to climate change and the environment which was, I mean, very much a, a consensus. I mean, there was a lot of discussion between Department of Transport and DEFRA at both official and ministerial level, and over a period of some months so that we, sort of, you know, worked together to understand the objectives of each department and what were the options and what was the best way of tackling this.And that's what led to the conclusion of the White Paper that we should aim for a considerable development of aviation with all the benefits that that brings to the British economy and the British people, but also that we should ensure that aviation is covering its external costs and its environmental costs as part of that, including its impact on global warming. And so the decision in the White Paper that the UK should press within international bodies, such as the European Union, and at a global level, for measures to ensure that aviation is covering those costs, in particular through sort of bringing aviation within systems of carbon trading so that we could get the control and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but in a way which sort of allowed flexibility to find well what are the ways of doing that, that sort of had the least damaging economic impact – and not just looking within one sector like aviation, but looking across sectors, so that, we can get the result we want, on greenhouse gases, while sort of having the minimum damage to economic factors and, I mean, that was one of the foremost issues that ministers and officials were discussing collectively.

Commentary

Friends of the Earth's Richard Dyer rejects the notion that any carbon trading scheme will be enough to mitigate the environmental effects of the massive growth in aviation planned in the White Paper.

Richard Dyer

There is this bland assurance that the Emissions Trading Scheme will solve all in terms of the environmental problems, particularly climate change impacts. But no assessment, really, to look at how the Emissions Trading Scheme might affect the growth in flights, and what that might mean for runway capacity.So it's like, let's assume that we need this capacity and let's go ahead and provide it, rather than taking stock of what needs to be done in terms of meeting climate targets and what changes in the economy might mean to those growth projections.

Commentary

Peter Ainsworth's criticism is also focused on the Government's failure to address aviation's impact on climate change.

Peter Ainsworth

In the end, we are either serious about tackling climate change or we are not, and there is no more glaring example that I can think of in terms of today's politics of a failure to join up thinking about climate change with another policy area, in this case obviously aviation.So I think the right thing to have done would have been to have placed far more emphasis on its environmental impacts, which are the controversial thing about developing aviation infrastructure, and bind them into the process much earlier, instead of receiving a huge hail of bullets from environmental NGOs and local campaign groups and so on, but basically brushing them off and say, 'Sorry, we are going to do this anyway, and by the way it is very balanced', which of course it isn't. My only question is how at national level does the British Government square its commitment to reducing C0₂ emissions with its commitment to trebling airport capacity. I haven't had an answer to that question.And that is why I have criticised this White Paper and the entire policy as being based on a predict and pride approach towards aviation, something which I know the Department of Transport vehemently denies, but actually denial is no replacement for argument – they predicted a huge increase over the next thirty years in the amount of air travel that will be required and they plan to meet it – that is predict and provide.

Commentary

Furthermore he feels very strongly that the main beneficiaries of the outcome will be the aviation industry itself.

Peter Ainsworth

To the extent that it increases the capacity of the aviation industry to ferry people around the world in an unsustainable way, they benefit. I suppose it could be argued that there might be some economic benefits in the Stansted area, although I think the economic benefits of aviation have actually been exaggerated.I mean a lot of the jobs involved in aviation are pretty poor quality jobs, and if the overall intention is to build a sort of hub facility so that people fly in, change planes and move on somewhere else, well who actually benefits from that?I mean, to the extent that capacity has increased, of course the aviation industry benefits, the airlines benefit, BAA which owns Stansted benefits, although I think they themselves would rather see developments at Heathrow.

Commentary

Richard Dyer agrees:

Richard Dyer

It's obvious that the aviation industry have done extremely well out of this – they are generally very pleased with the publication of the White Paper and the proposals it contained.They probably would have liked Heathrow a bit sooner, but they are getting pretty much what the want. And I suppose in a sense some of the public are very much used to the availability of cheap flights. That would seem to be looking to continue.But put that in perspective, that's mainly much better off people benefiting from that, rather than new opportunities being provided for less well off people. The statistics show that it's mainly ABC 1s, the top social groups, the higher social groups, that are flying more often and will fly more and more often with this growth than the less well off people flying. There is still fifty per cent of the population that don't fly.So in a way it's getting us used to unsustainable habits that can't go on, because in a sense the climate impacts particularly of the sector are increasing rapidly. The trend just can't continue if we are going to have any chance of tackling climate change, even if we take quite radical steps with other sectors of industry and the economy to cut carbon emissions.Aviation poses quite a severe threat to that, so things are heading in completely the wrong direction.It's really living in cloud cuckoo land to expect the industry to continue to expand as it has done and continue to benefit from the effective tax breaks that it gets which are driving the low cost of flights and therefore the growth in flights.

Commentary

Both Peter Ainsworth and Richard Dyer point out that the context within which environmental debate and decisions take place has changed since the beginning of the aviation White Paper process.

Peter Ainsworth

There has been a change in the science, there has been a change in the oil price and there has been a change in the terms of debate around the world – not in America I have to say – I was listening to a man from the Federal Aviation Industry at a conference the other day who said that they weren't really worried about climate change and aviation.Now that is them, we don't have to go that way. There are more and more people now who realise that aviation has huge long term and damaging consequences for the environment and we need to rethink what we are doing.

Richard Dyer

I think a number of things have happened, the price of oil has increased dramatically and we don't really know what is going to happen with that in the longer term, but I think it would be fair to say that oil is going to become scarcer and scarcer so we can expect it to become a long term trend that oil is more expensive.I think we have also seen climate change rise up the political agenda and also in public awareness as well. Certainly this year I have been very much aware of the amount of attention in the media that climate change has had, and aviation's impact on climate change particularly. And I think in a way we are at the very early stages of this awareness building, in a way that perhaps the impact, of road building say fifteen years ago or so, when it wasn't really questioned that you just build new roads to solve a problem or to deal with a rise in road traffic and congestion. And now that certainly is questioned. And I think we are at the very early stages of aviation industry of that realisation that we can't really go on as we are. Only this summer we had front pages of some of the broadsheet newspapers with big articles on aviation's climate change impacts, and travel writers in many of the big newspapers now writing about sustainable travel and about aviation's climate impacts in a way that one journalist said to me recently: 'We wouldn't have done this a year ago. Our editors wouldn't be interested in it.' So I think public awareness has got a long way to go, but it's certainly rising on this issue.

Commentary

Some have suggested that advances in aircraft technology could provide an environmental fix.

Peter Ainsworth

I am interested in some of the technological advances which the industry is talking about and they sooner they come the better. I mean to the extent that they can mitigate noise, that they can mitigate pollution, that they can mitigate the impact on climate change, these technological developments are great. The trouble is, in the context of overwhelming growth forecasts and building airport capacity to enable that growth to take place, those technological advances are going to be a drop in the ocean. They are really not going to make any difference at all and they won't make any difference until you can devise a technology which doesn't use fossil fuel to get aeroplanes off the ground.So I welcome that, and there is a lot of good work going on, but actually, in the end, it is about how serious we are about climate change, and I am sorry to keep coming back to it, but that is actually the bottom line, and if we are serious about it, and my goodness we need to be, then we are going to have to constrain the growth that aviation wants to see in the years ahead.

Richard Dyer

We simply can't have the rate of growth that we have been experiencing and what's projected in the future to continue. It's possible that we could accommodate some growth in flights, perhaps what technology could accommodate. We can expect probably about a one per cent efficiency improvements in aircraft technology. But we are seeing growth in this country of more than six per cent a year at the moment, and with no prospect of a radical change of aircraft technology to solve the problem it's simply irresponsible to go on increasing the amount that we fly.

Commentary

But what would be the effectiveness of other proposals to limit aviation's growth?

Richard Dyer

They have already said they want to bring in Aviation Emissions Trading – this is the European Commission – I think we could see quite a firm proposal on the design of that scheme and that's really critical because emissions trading can be an ineffective sop to the industry or it can be a very effective tool in combating aircraft emissions. So the devil is really going to be in the detail as far as that goes.Some parts of the industry want emissions trading scheme that just covers intra-EU flights – flights between European airports – and we and the European Commission want the emissions trading scheme to cover all departures from the EU airports. So that would cover flights say to the US from our airports in the EU and the amount of emissions that the scheme would cover radically differs depending upon which of those options you go for.

Commentary

Peter Ainsworth favours focusing on taxation as a means of controlling aviation growth.

Peter Ainsworth

They get a very favourable tax deal at the moment, there is no tax on aviation fuel, for example, there is no VAT on tickets. You can't impose tax on aviation fuel without getting an international agreement to do so and there are obstacles about that, but we should at least be discussing that in an international context.We have a thing called air passenger duty in this country which everyone pays, but which is not related in any way to the emissions that come out of the back end of an aeroplane.So having an emissions charge would, I think, be a creative thing to do, I personally and what my committee recommended would like to see the proceeds of that reinvested in technologies which can help reduce the impact of aviation on the environment.So there are all sorts of fiscal measures that you can achieve, you can contain the problem by not trebling airport capacity, but by building perhaps on a more limited scale, you can explain to the public by telling them on their tickets how much carbon that journey is releasing into the atmosphere and people are – there is a huge public ignorance about this, people think that a £19 flight to Malaga is just that. Actually there are huge potential costs attached to that for which nobody is paying at the moment, that needs to be reflected. So public awareness grows and the true cost of aviation is actually borne by those who want to fly.

Commentary

Richard Dyer thinks that sooner or later we are all going to have to make choices about the environmental costs of our lifestyles.

Richard Dyer

The Government have commendably taken climate change quite seriously, at least with their words, but they should be saying things like 'well we have got to make decisions about where these cuts are going to come from in terms of CO₂'. It's going to mean decisions eventually about how much you can drive your car, and weighing that up with how many cheap flights do you want, or are you allowed to have any cheap flights or can you heat your home and have cheap flights?I am sticking my neck out here, but it's eventually we are going to be looking at decisions like that if we carry on going down the road that we are going down because we can't have everything.We have got to cut carbon emissions from all sources, and aviation has got to play its part in that, and I don't think at the moment the Government are being honest in presenting the depth of the problem as it actually is.

Commentary

So who will be the losers if aviation grows unfettered in the way that's been predicted and planned for in the Aviation White Paper?

Peter Ainsworth

People who live near the airport lose out, they lose out because of noise, pollution and all the environmental problems and because aviation has a particularly intense impact on climate change, we all lose.

Richard Dyer

We all lose out to an extent obviously from climate change when it eventually kicks in much more strongly, but also in a sense, the less well off amongst us are losing out because you know the loss to the public purse of this income.So, effectively we are subsidising better off people to fly more often, and that money could be going towards public services that benefit all and perhaps more less well off people, and that seems a crazy state of affairs when something is, you know, such an environmentally damaging form of transport and it's mainly a leisure activity as well.The growth is mainly going to be in leisure travel, rather than business travel, that arguably has more benefit to the economy.

Commentary

Richard Dyer predicts that the Government's plans are unlikely to be carried out without serious challenges from at least some sections of the public.

Richard Dyer

I think in the long term it's quite likely that we will see some sort of direct action. Communities around airports are getting increasingly angry.We get contacted every few weeks by a new group that's formed, totally shocked and angry about some new proposal that's been published by their local airport. Those impacts are going to be felt all over the place and so I think people are getting very angry – you hear about public meetings where hundreds of people couldn't get in to the small room the meeting was booked for because people are so angry. Those fears are going to be brought more into reality when we start to see diggers out there and the first signs of concrete on the ground. I think that's when you could see direct action taking place. It's certainly feasible and it's happened recently on road schemes, so I certainly wouldn't rule it out.

Commentary

Only time will tell what the outcome will be, but even during the consultation process, Norman Mead the General Secretary of Stop Stansted Expansion was warning of militant action:

Norman Mead

I stress straight away we're not Swampies.What does concern me is there are a lot of people who we've been holding back at the moment who wish to take far more militant action than we have seen fit; they've gone along with us so far, and all credit to them for doing it, but I will have a job holding them back if proposals like that come to the fore. They will be looking at closing runways and stopping up the airport and things like that. And I won't be able to stop them at that point.

End transcript: Critique of the white paper (23 minutes 28 seconds)

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Critique of the white paper (23 minutes 28 seconds)

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Drawing on the Critique of the white paper programme and the rest of the case study material, review the decision-making process of the Aviation White Paper and the context within which it evolved.

1. Who were the decision makers? How did they arrive at their position of decision making? Which resources did they control? Which values underpinned their actions?
2. What was the decision situation? What was the context? What were the uncertainties? What actual and potential risks were involved?
3. What problems were posed by the decision makers? Which opportunities were apparent to them?
4. Which criteria did the decision makers adopt to structure the decision-making process?
5. Within which time-frame did the decision-making process occur, and what sequence did the various components take?
6. Who were the people affected by the decision? How was their participation in the decision-making process managed?
7. What kinds of decision support (theories, tools and techniques) were in evidence in the Aviation White Paper decision-making process?

Discussion

1. Alistair Darling, the then Minister of Transport, was clearly the person with the final say in the Aviation White Paper. His mandate to govern as Minister for Transport was awarded to him by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister. The whole Aviation White Paper process was, in fact, underpinned by a series of decisions, such as the assumptions within the SPASM modelling, and yet the principal decision makers within the Department for Transport seem to have had a strong role in selecting outcomes which favoured airport expansion and significant resources were available.
2. The decision situation was certainly complex. Decision makers started in an environment where very little was known and studies needed to be initiated to provide quick results on predicted capacity and social, economic and environmental impacts. The decision makers had to balance local national interests and international obligations (chiefly as climate change), stakeholders from industry, the environmental movement and local residents, short-term gains and long-term impacts. The latter were highly uncertain, ranging from predicated capacity needs to socio-economic benefits to environmental effects. At risk were principally short-term political careers, competitiveness of UK aviation-related business and, in the long term, people’s health.
3. The problems posed by the decision makers from the initial lack of an airport expansion strategy included loss of competitiveness of the UK aviation industry with capacity taken up in mainland Europe, and the risk of a protracted and costly public inquiry on submission of a development proposal. The opportunities included developing a clear strategy for expansion that supposed balanced social, economic and environmental impacts. I actually think that the decision makers saw environmental impacts as a minor concern, with the notion of ‘develop now, clean up later’ (preferably by someone in the next generation) firmly in their minds. Resolving the environmental impact of aviation was therefore seen as an opportunity.
4. The rhetoric in the Aviation White Paper process was very much based around balancing socio-economic benefits and environmental impacts. One of the main criteria used was monetary valuation, i.e. that social, economic and environmental issues could be costed and compared so as to support decision making. Interested parties were consulted but there was no participation in determining the decision-making process and, indeed, the criteria which actually resulted in the final decision are unknown since deliberations were carried out behind closed doors.
5. The Aviation White Paper process occurred over the 2000–03 time period when major worldwide events were taking place which could have significantly affected the development (the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, preparation for war in Iraq, etc.). Yet the process did not seem to have adapted to the evolving worldwide situation.
6. The people involved can be divided into those under the direct influence of the decision – the travelling public, the aviation industry and related businesses, the residents surrounding airports, the environmental movement, and the various governing bodies (DfT, local councils, etc.); those under indirect influence – the taxpayer (through subsidies to the aviation industry); and those potentially affected by aviation’s contribution to climate change.
7. Mathematical modelling to predict capacity requirements played a key role in the decision-making process. Cost–benefit analysis was also a significant technique used. Other techniques used included mapping, questionnaires and a wide range of environmental sampling techniques at the sites proposed for development.

Figure 27 ‘And our new cups are made of environmentally-friendly materials, sir!’

5.6 The future

There are so many things going on after the date of writing this case study in 2005 concerning aviation expansion that it would be futile for me to speculate on all the potential developments. The debate about aviation expansion and the recommendations of the White Paper has continued. I have focused on two key areas to watch.

5.6.1 The European Union Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme

The mitigation of the greenhouse effects of aviation emissions will be a major issue of contention in the near future. The aviation industry is strongly resisting any introduction of taxation and/or regulation that would limit emissions. Any unilateral taxes are perceived to prejudice the aviation industry’s competitiveness, so an EU and/or global approach is required. But the UK has been at the forefront of resisting aviation tax harmonisation across the EU. Instead, the UK government proposes an introduction of a global carbon trading mechanism as already prototyped by the Kyoto Protocol Signatories. An emissions trading scheme would require governments to set emissions quotas for each industrial sector. This would require industries which exceed their quotas to buy ‘carbon credits’ which would compensate for their excesses. The trading scheme would work on a supply and demand basis, where certain industrial sectors able to emit less carbon than their quota would be able to sell their credits. The price of the carbon credits would then depend on the supply from efficient or contracting industries and the demand from inefficient or expanding industries.

Figure 28 Globespan Bureau de Change

The BAA has strongly favoured this approach, estimating that it would cost the aviation industry up to 40 times less than any potential taxes on fuels. The UK government is pushing for the inclusion of the aviation industry into a new European Union carbon emissions trading scheme to be relaunched in 2008. The European Union’s goal of limiting global temperature rise to an average of 2 degrees centigrade is estimated by many scientists to centre around an atmospheric CO₂ concentration of 450ppm (current levels are 380ppm). This provides an indication for the emission allowances that EU governments need to establish for various industries in order to not exceed the 450ppm ceiling.

(Parts per million is a unit for measuring gas concentrations for those gases found in relatively low concentrations in the atmosphere. Another way to represent CO₂ atmospheric concentrations is in percentage terms – 0.038 per cent, i.e. 0.038 parts per hundred. Using parts per million (ppm) avoids using lots of zeroes.)

Figure 29 ‘Quick! Stick some more money in the meter – the exhaust’s cut out!

The jury is still out on whether carbon trading will effectively reduce emissions, or whether it will just provide a smokescreen for ‘business as usual’. Many believe that the inclusion of the aviation industry in the scheme will create such a demand for credits that the price will reach astronomical levels and ruin the whole scheme. There are therefore many issues to resolve before 2008 and even European commissioners are favouring the introduction of aviation taxes as an interim measure. The UK government is resisting this.

5.6.2 Runway capacity issues

There is still a long way to go before the bulldozers move into Stansted. Although the government has indicated that a new runway should be built at Stansted by 2012, it is now up to the BAA, the de facto owner of Stansted, to submit a plan for expansion for approval by the governmental planning authorities. This will inevitably involve a public inquiry, which will consult a range of local stakeholders and assess the impacts of expansion. A decision will then be made by a judge on whether a second runway should be built or not.

The BAA is currently trying very hard to improve its social and environmental image in order to help the plan receive a much more favourable response from the inquiry process. Stansted is just one of many airports across Europe where issues of runway capacity are being addressed. These issues are likely to be headline news for many years to come.

Figure 30 Please leave your earthly responsibilities here

Activity 25 Listening to Ugandan views on aviation expansion

Airport expansion within the UK will have global repercussions, not only as a result of contributions to climate change but also because the aeroplanes taking off from British airports will have to land somewhere. So expansion in the UK will almost inevitably lead to expansion in many airports throughout the world. The views of stakeholders outside the UK were not even considered. Take this opportunity to listen to the audio programme, Perspectives from Uganda, and consider: How does the situation in Uganda differ from that in the UK?

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Transcript: Perspectives from Uganda (18 minutes 50 seconds)

Perspectives from Uganda

Commentary

Managing aviation in developing countries presents a radically different set of challenges to those faced by managers in the UK.These contrasts are particularly marked in the roles that aviation plays in national and local economies, and in its socio-economic and environmental impacts.The East African State of Uganda's principal airport is Entebbe International – situated outside the capital Kampala on the shores of Lake Victoria.Dr Wenceslas Rama Makuza – Deputy Managing Director of Uganda's Civil Aviation Authority – describes the vital role that Entebbe airport plays in Uganda's economy:

Dr Makuza

The role of Entebbe International Airport is actually as the kingpin of the air transport infrastructure, in that it is the gateway outside and into Uganda by air. It is the only international airport Uganda has.Now, the major role it has played in air transport is for the international travelling passengers, the imports and exports of cargo, and the general requirements of air transport. Now the impact this airport has had is the linkage between the developed world and the poor of the countryside of Uganda. Smallholding farming that is oriented for exports, examples are the traditional grown crops particularly fruits, vegetables that are grown by smallholding peasants but there is a collective marketing system that links by those who put them into load sizes for export.The second that is actually causing a lot of impact now, is in two areas. One is the fish exports – we are now having more than 17 foreign investors who have come in for fish processing, ready for the interests of the European market. The second area is in the flower farming – at the moment the focal area of the market is Britain and Holland, and this has had a lot of impact and most of the farmers, because of a need for proximity, being near the Airport. You will find them within an area of, let's say a radius of about 40 kilometres from the Entebbe International Airport and Entebbe International Airport, with its existence has induced this type of investment.

Commentary

For an airport to have such a direct positive economic impact on the population in its vicinity may be quite surprising to those who have only considered the impacts of aviation in developed countries, but when it comes to the environmental impacts, there are some surprises too.Richard Okulu is General Manger of Entebbe International and acting director of airports nationally:

Richard Okulu

The issues relating to environmental problems at this airport are quite varied. But typically in most airports the noise is foremost, definitely noise has this nature of being irritating and whatever, and it is a disturbance to society. And fortunately it hasn't taken a very serious turn here in this part of the world, specifically here because the community establishment is not so much built up nearest to the airport or within the take-off and landing areas. But still there is noise, but at the same time we have not got the scientific tools to measure these noise levels. So we generally take it as noise being pollution, but its effect is not so much realised. I would say I would be the one to complain most being here, as I said, the noise generated from the airside and my office is fairly near here, it is quite irritating, it is very disturbing, a lot of times I cannot even hold meetings in this office.The community itself, I think some of them could be more excited about it, rather than it being a complaint. The country being what it is in a developing world, it is certainly more exciting to be seeing aeroplanes sometimes rather than saying, it is too noisy, take it somewhere else.

Commentary

So far from being a nuisance the local population still regard aeroplanes as something of a novelty. And there are other factors which mitigate against noise being a major problem, as Dr Rama Makuza points out.

Dr Makuza

Entebbe International Airport, it is settled on the peninsula surrounded by Lake Victoria on either side of the runways. We have two runways – the approaches into the airport and moving out of the airport by aircraft go over the water. And there is very little settlement of population around. All the same, even if it had to be a problem, the aircraft movements in and out of Entebbe Airport are still negligibly low. If you compare them with an airport like Heathrow, where the noise is constantly on – minute in, minute out – and it has been a big concern by the existing community around the airport, to the extent that it has a night curfew for operations. This one is not a major issue.

Commentary

The low volume of traffic certainly reduces the airport's environmental impact compared to the world's busiest airports. Richard Okulu again:

Richard Okulu

Other pollution, I think you would be talking about problem emissions from the aircraft, but the traffic level here is so low, it is really not like anything you would compare to London Heathrow or something. So it does not seem to be a problem.

Commentary

But as Dr Rama Makuza says, there are some environmental protection measures which have caused problems for the airlines.

Dr Makuza

The issue we have is the outcry by the airlines themselves. Entebbe International Airport is unfortunately lying in the gazetted area for the birds. It is a bird sanctuary. It is the breeding centre for migrating birds from northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere and the airport itself is very close to the equator.So bird strikes were, for some years back, a big concern by airlines. They were having damages to engines. We had to take up a corrective measure.Nature Uganda, which is an organisation that is actually taking care of wildlife being left within its natural environment, Civil Aviation Authority was induced to be a member. We are currently members and the interests of that organisation – Nature Uganda – was that the Civil Aviation Authority and the management of Entebbe International Airport do not harm birds because the airport is living within a bird sanctuary area. Now what we have had to do as well, was not really to eradicate birds by the area, but has been to use other measures that would have the birds be off the flight paths of airlines. These ones have been mainly through using gunfire – only making the noise and they get off. Then others, who have had to go through research with use of environmental experts, by recording different sounding of birds when they are harmed – you know when they are feeling pain and normally when they hear that sounding, they fly away from the neighbourhood knowing that there is trouble to them.Then we have also used the foot patrollers. This has been borrowed from Addis Ababa airport, where we have the physical presence of employees moving around the runways so that the birds do not come to settle.

Richard Okulu

We have a unit which is dedicated to control bird strikes at this airport and this has been on for the last five years. Since that unit came into force we have recorded a marked drop in the number of bird strikes. I need not tell you that bird strike is serious problem as far as operation of aircraft is concerned because one large bird, can destroy a whole aircraft. And you are not only talking about lives you are also talking about property, you are talking about all sorts of things – finances.So we have taken this very serious concern on these birds and we have a lot of data now because we believe knowing the animal is how you can actually take care of it. So we have in our databank now all sorts of information – its seasonality, its areas of roosting. And linking up with the community around this area here, we have very close relationship with the community.

Commentary

Dr Rama Makuza agrees with Richard Okulu that good community relations have played a key role in tackling the problem of bird strike.

Dr Makuza

Being surrounded by water, we have very many landing sites particularly by our traditional fishermen and women. They use canoes – on landing they have fish that is exposed and is always an attraction to birds.It is a big issue, we are trying, by having them as partners to us, and we have had to go through educational programmes.We are also helped now by the fish processors that have set up factories in that the end market, which is mainly Europe, is also involved into the hygiene requirements of processing fish.So what has been a problem over time jointly with the airport management and the fisheries authorities, together with investors in fish, this problem we are having of attracting birds may die out so that there are no birds that are coming in.At times they would have even leave refuse after cutting fish, and then you find quite a number of birds coming in. So this is a problem we are looking at but we hope we are going to manage it by having these fishermen and women improve on their habits of handling fish.

Commentary

Keen to capitalise on the investment and economic development opportunities offered by Entebbe International – the Ugandan government and Civil Aviation Authority have embarked on an expansion plan. Dr Rama Makuza:

Dr Makuza

There is rising traffic within and out of Uganda. We are going to make expansion of the old airport to have a new cargo centre to handle most of the exports. So we have to develop a new apron. We will have to strengthen that runway that has been existing from the fifties.We are going to shift quite a number of facilities like VIP lounge to that area and the domestic operations. So that we leave the existing runway mainly for scheduled international airlines and those in the region.In addition we are intending to have more commercialisation of Entebbe International Airport by setting up an airport city which will also have a free zone area and we are trying to focus more on the customers coming from the region. This airport city and free zone is the target for the requirements of the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Northern Tanzania and Eastern Kenya and of course serving the interests of the whole of Uganda.This is initiated because we are mandated to operate under commercial principles; but to also look at these commercial principles definitely the support for it to do business is through increase of volumes through Entebbe International Airport.Now this involves proposals to Government and the Government has already OK'd giving us the opportunity of having a free zone and airport city.The whole idea came about after making a benchmark with the other leading free zone areas particularly at Singapore, Schiphol, Dubai and Shannon.We have had to involve stakeholders in this and these ones have been structured in these three areas:One was popularising it within our management team – the board.Secondly: through the market itself, the market place stakeholders – the importers and the exporters. Then quite a number have a lot of contributions they have given us on what they would expect in order to have this place as a vibrant place for commercial activities.The third area has been the external ones, particularly parliamentarians who have a committee of transport which we have had to involve in order to popularise that. We have also had those within the judiciary, in the requirements of licensing that might be required. Then we have also had to involve, on acquisition of land which initially has been under the Ministry for Animal Industry and it has now been transferred to Civil Aviation Authority. Noticing what impact this one would have to cause to the economy.

Commentary

But it's not only economic considerations which are taken into account; diplomacy plays a role as well.

Dr Makuza

Uganda will be hosting the commonwealth summit meeting in 2007 and we expect not less than 60 heads of state and some of these heads of state, including Her Majesty The Queen, may have more than one aircraft – that will require an area of parking for them. That is why we have had to make radical decision for improving the old airport.

Commentary

But just as in more developed countries, there is always competition for public funds and development priorities, and Richard Okulu fears that some sections of the population may not welcome the expansion plans.

Richard Okulu

The local population's attitude or views towards expansion of the airport, in as far as improvement of facilities is concerned, might not go down very well because the problems in this country are vast and varied. Because if you looked in other sectors, other than the aviation sector itself, I mean you are talking about the health, you are talking about education, talking about – all these need to be boosted up. Now for a high percentage of society to appreciate what goes on in the airport, I think it would be a dream because probably there is a high percentage whose basic needs are not met.But at the same time we can not sit by because this – all these projects still contribute to the economy of this country. So at the higher level, certainly we know it is a good thing, but it is not appreciated at the lower level.

End transcript: Perspectives from Uganda (18 minutes 50 seconds)

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Discussion

In Uganda, the scale of the issue is quite different. Entebbe Airport is relatively small with far fewer flights per week than Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted or other airports in the South East of England. Airport expansion in Uganda would be seen as a positive sign of development and a boost to the national economy. These social and economic concerns are more important than environmental issues. The constraints on airport expansion in Uganda are more to do with limited national resources than opposition by local inhabitants or any environment concerns. There are some environmental impacts that are of concern but these are about wildlife and natural habitats rather than the impacts on human population which are the focus of opposition to UK airport expansion.

6 The T863 framework for environmental decision making

The T863 framework, shown in Figure 31, is so named because it has a central role in the OU course T863, from which this free course is adapted. This section and the animation in Activity 26 describe the framework within the context of the course and make forward references to other course books that are not available in this unit.

6.1 Environmental decision making as a learning process

There are many ways of making decisions, and there are different ways of describing decision-making processes and recognising their boundaries. You are now going to be introduced to one framework that offers much to guide environmental decision making, and is a useful way of ordering thinking about decision making. It is based on tried and tested ways of analysing decision situations and of working out appropriate courses of action. The overall purpose of the framework is to provide a structure to enable environmental decision making to be a process of learning that allows for continuous improvement rather than a one-off, constrained activity that stops once a decision is made. The framework suggested is shown in Figure 20.

Figure 31 T863 framework for environmental decision making

How does this framework compare with methods of decision making discussed in previous sections? An important distinction between the framework shown in Figure 31 and other staged procedures for decision making is the iterative nature of the process described. Although in many cases a clear ‘decision’ can be identified, this may not be an end in itself. What may be more important is the opportunity that this process provides for those concerned to learn about the situation, and to be better prepared to deal with similar situations in the future. The framework thus represents a formalisation of the experiential learning process described in Figure 11.

6.2 The T863 framework and the case study

Let us now use the framework to do a preliminary analysis of the environmental decision-making processes that are evident in the ‘Freedom to fly?’ case study and to consider what might be learnt from them for future use. Below I have listed a series of questions that may aid you in this analysis.

• Does the framework help you to restructure your response to Activity 20 within the case study?
• Is it possible to map out the various stages in the ‘Aviation White Paper’ process onto the framework?
• Can you identify areas where there is a mismatch between the process and the framework?

Record your initial impressions of the framework in your learning journal.

As you work through this section answering specific questions about the case study, you may sometimes feel you are repeating some of the preceding activities. This is intended. Some of the activities reiterate or reformulate previous activities so that you build up both knowledge and skills.

My purpose in asking the above questions is not only to allow you to make judgements about what should have been done with regard to the process of deciding aviation expansion with the benefit of hindsight, but also to point out that when similar decision-making processes are being started today, they could be approached differently..

In my experience, it is relatively easy to analyse a situation with hindsight, especially after having access to a range of pre-selected and ordered material. However, like many environmental decision-making situations, the ‘Aviation White Paper’ was very complex and many constraints played on the decision makers during the process:

• time constraints may not have allowed a sequential procedure through the stages
• the scale of the issue may have prevented all the stakeholders being involved in all the stages all the time
• crucial information may not have been available at the start of the process and probably was revealed at different stages.

Like any framework, the T863 environmental decision-making framework has its potential strengths and its limitations, depending on how it is used. For example, in terms of strengths, it recognises the following needs:

• for problems, opportunities and systems of interest to emerge from exploring or re-exploring a situation
• to use techniques and develop skills and understanding for environmental decision making in systems thinking, modelling, evaluating and negotiating
• for environmental decision making to be considered as an iterative rather than a linear process.

The framework can also be used to help question and consider the decision-making processes in which you might be engaged. For example, it suggests questions such as:

• Has the situation been considered sufficiently?
• Have problems, opportunities and systems of interest been allowed to emerge?
• Will systems thinking, modelling, evaluating and negotiating help?
• Who has been involved in the processes of exploring a situation, formulating problems, opportunities and systems of interest, identifying changes and taking action and how have they been involved?
• What have we learnt from the overall process and how can that learning inform our future decisions and actions?

The framework’s limitations (which it shares with other frameworks) are that it will not be possible to ‘fit’ every decision-making process to it, and that all steps in it will not be appropriate for all situations. You may also have time constraints in a particular situation that mean you cannot use all aspects of the framework. It will also not necessarily be easy to recognise where you are within it as, within one project or decision situation, several stages may be active at any one time. You should be as critical in your use of this framework as in your use of other aspects of this unit. Students of T863 use this framework to analyse their own chosen environmental decision-making situation.

Conclusion

This free course provided an introduction to studying Environment & Development. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance, and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.

References

Acknowledgements

This unit was written by Chris Blackmore (section 1-4 and 6) and Andrea Berardi (section 5).

Course image: el-toro in Flickr made available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Licence.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources:

Figure 1: Drawing by Vietor © 1982, The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.

Figure 3: © Photofusion.

Figure 4a: Carsten Peter/National Geographic Image Collection.

Figure 4b: © Reuters/NOAA.

Figure 5: U.S. National Research Council – Policy Division, 1999.

Page 21: Sexton, K., Marcus, A.F., Easter, K.W. and Burkhardt, T.D. (1999), ‘Characterising Environmental Decisions: Six Dimensions’ in Better Environmental Decisions: Strategies for Governments, Businesses and Communities, Island Press.

Box 2: United Nations, ‘The Millennium Development Goals’.

Reading 1: March, J (1994) ‘Limited Rationality’, A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen, New York Free Press.

Table 2: Sexton, K., Marcus, A.F., Easter, K.W. and Burkhardt, T.D. (1999), ‘Characterising Environmental Decisions: Six Dimensions’ in Better Environmental Decisions: Strategies for Governments, Businesses and Communities, Island Press.

Figure 1: Klein, G. (1998) Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions, London, MIT Press.

Figure 2: Harley Schwadron, Cartoon Stock.

Figure 4: Uphoff, N. (1992) ‘Local Institutions and participation for sustainable development’, Gatekeeper Series No. SA31, International Institute for Environment and Development

Box 1: United Nations General Assembly (2000) United Nations Millennium Declaration, www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.pdf

Table 1: Dryzek, J. S. (1997), The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses, Oxford University Press.

Figure 1: ICAO (2000) Air Traffic Forecast, ICAO, www.icao.int.

Table 3: DETR (2000) Appraisal Framework for Airports in South East and East of England, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. Crown copyright material is reproduced under Class Licence Number C01W0000065 with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland.

© Photofusion

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