Contact: Betty Levene –01326 377447/01209 610610
Roger Creagh-Osborne - 07736 74126
Oliver Baines – 07967 604517

NEWS RELEASE

Newquay Airport Masterplan verdict – inaccurate and hopelessly flawed
19th January 2009

For immediate release


SNAIRE (Stop Newquay AIRport Expansion), the Cornish coalition opposing the proposed expansion of Newquay Airport, and part of AiportWatch South West [1] have today sent a letter to members of the Community Development & Scrutiny Committee of Cornwall County Council alerting them to grave inaccuracies contained in the Newquay Cornwall Airports Draft Masterplan for the airport [2].

The committee meet this Wednesday and the document will be on the agenda.

SNAIRE and Cornwall FoE member Betty Levene said: “We have been shocked at some of the misinformation and flawed data and figures contained in this document and believe there to be very significant questions to be answered about assumptions - and also about omissions.

The document appears to take the councils’ wished-for objective - airport expansion – and create information that will match their desired but economically and environmentally unrealistic outcome. The result is a deeply flawed document and a scheme that will not be able to deliver on its aims, landing Cornwall with a huge and long-term financial burden and criminally soaring climate changing emissions”.

The letter from SNAIRE notes several specific areas of concern:

  • disregarded but crucial information on carbon emissions including the latest and worsening climate change evidence and impacts of Newquay Airport on Cornwall’s other emissions reduction requirements;

  • overstating the likely emission reductions from aircraft in the future, resulting in lower than reasonable emission figures for the site published in the document;

  • flawed figures for car mileage CO2 savings and misleading comparisons between air and other modes of transport;

  • appallingly disingenuous treatment of other environmental impacts – in, for instance relation to car access to the site, poorly presented information on noise impacts; and

  • business plan options which appear to be based on little more than a generic wish list of opportunities (hotels, business parks, flying schools etc).


SNAIRE and Campaign for Better Transport member Roger Creagh-Osborne added: “We think one of the worst aspects of the document is the total omission of an option for positive and sustainable alternative uses for the site. This is both necessary – a no-growth or an expanded airport are both considerable loss makers - and would redress a missed opportunity; above all it would mean that the consultation process actually allowed people to respond on a full gamit of opinion which it clearly does not currently”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

[1] SNAIRE comprises Cornwall Groundswell, Cornwall Friends of the Earth, Cornwall Campaign for Better Transport and the Cornish Green Party.

AiportWatch is the umbrella group linking organization such as those in SNAIRE with other airport campaigners across the south west of England and Cornwall.

[2] the Masterplan is available at http://www.newquaycornwallairport.com and members of the public and interested groups can respond to it online or by letter/email by 30th Jan