"The new terminal will have a profound effect on the environment"
Last week, a public inquiry began into the plans of the UK's major airport operator, BAA, to build a fifth passenger terminal at London Heathrow, the country's largest and most important airport. Some 300km (160 miles) away a public inquiry into the plans of Manchester Airport to build a second runway has been under way for months. That these two inquiries are under way is a testament to the strength of the democratic process, which rules the UK. That they will last for years is an awful judgement on its weakness.
There is no doubt that there should be some form of control over the development of large infrastructure projects. The building of Heathrow's Terminal 5 will enable the near doubling of that airport's passenger capacity. Although the structure of the new terminal will be entirely within the present airport boundaries, it will have a profound effect on the environment and social structure of the communities around it.
More air-passengers mean more surface movements and more airport workers living nearby. According to its opponents, the building of the new terminal means more aircraft movements and more noise; according to its proponents, it does not.
The building of a second runway at Manchester will enable a 50% increase in flight numbers, but at the cost of expanding the airport into a rural community outside the existing airport boundary. The existence of that second runway would attract new carriers, bringing with them more flights and more passengers to fill them, and it would inevitably change the travel patterns of north-west England.
Because such projects must have a profound effect on the communities surrounding them, it is clear and proper that the decisions on whether to allow them to proceed should not be made lightly. It is far from clear, however, that the drawn-out public inquiry is the proper mechanism to use in reaching those decisions.
At the end of the inquiry, the government-appointed inspector could turn the project down. The inspector could give approval, but the relevant government minister could overturn that recommendation. In either case, the decision could go to appeal. Building the new terminal will take years even after permission is given - if it is given. The aircraft builder could design, develop, manufacture and deliver the aircraft before the airport is built for it.
With built-in delays like this, the public inquiry is obviously far from being the perfect mechanism for judging such cases. The trouble is in finding a better one.
The Heathrow public inquiry has received, so far, more than 9,000 separate submissions. There are not by any stretch of the imagination 9,000 separate, valid points which can be made on this subject (though there are too many to be listed here), yet all of them will have to be heard. Some of the submissions come from individuals and groups, which have no justification other than their own political motives for making them. (It is hard to accept that anybody could knowingly move to live close to an airport without the expectation that the airport would generate noise and traffic, yet thousands of the objections to Heathrow's Terminal 5 come from just such people. Some of the submissions come from local authorities claiming to represent local residents, many of whom either work at the airport or depend on it for their livelihoods: do these authorities really represent the views of those people?)
Despite the welter of so-called scientific evidence, which will be produced by both sides, there are few uncontestable facts surrounding this issue. In the end, it will only be the relative weights of opinion, which can decide the issue and a public inquiry is a spectacularly bad forum for weighing opinion.
It would be cheaper and quicker by far to simply offer a public referendum on the issue. Let the contestants try to persuade all the voters in the catchment area of the airport, one way or the other in a limited time and make the result binding.
The arguments in support of both of these developments are strong enough to withstand such a public trial - whether democracy is another matter.
Source: Flight International
