Stop Airport Expansion - Call a Public Inquiry into Leeds Bradford Airport

STOP PRESS - DECEMBER 2024

GALBA (Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport) is STILL fighting LBA's attempts to expand.

So far, we’ve been incredibly successful in our five-year l battle. We have managed to block LBA at every stage of their expansion plans. But now LBA’s bosses have asked the government’s Planning Inspectors to overturn restrictions on night flights, at a Public Inquiry to be held in Leeds in March 2025.

If LBA win they will be able to fly an UNLIMITED number of planes at night.

Increasing night time flying is central to the airport's expansion plans. The reason is simple: unlimited night flying allows airlines to fly more of their planes round the clock, which means they can dramatically increase the number of flights at the airport. That’s what LBA’s appeal to the Planning Inspectors is all about.

More night flights would mean more greenhouse gases from jet engines, polluting our fragile climate, when everyone knows we have to cut emissions as fast and as much as possible. The Climate Change Committee has repeatedly said that airports should not be allowed to expand because there are no large scale alternatives to the fossil fuels used to fly aircraft.

OUR ORIGINAL CAMPAIGN

We have successfully petitioned the Secretary of State to hold a public inquiry into the expansion of Leeds Bradford airport so that the full national impact of airport expansion can be assessed.

The Public Inquiry was due to start on September 13th 2022. But Leeds Bradford Airport pulled out. Since then GALBA has been fighting expansion on many fronts. Here are some of the things we have achieved:

We succeeded in calling for a public inquiry into the original planning application – causing LBA to withdraw its application. We achieved this win by using every tactic available to us, including the very best legal advice, an enormous public petition and a letter-writing campaign.

We exposed hundreds of unlawful night flights at LBA over the past three summers. We were only able to do this because our dedicated and expert team literally logged every single arrival and departure at the airport – an extremely time-consuming and laborious process. Our hard work paid off because we were able to prove that the airport was not telling Leeds City Council the truth about night flight numbers and the Council was not independently monitoring them.

We persuaded Leeds City Council to turn down the airport’s attempts to rewrite the rules that limit the number of night flights. This was a huge blow to the airport and we believe it only came about because Leeds City Council was not able to argue with our relentless monitoring and the detailed legal arguments that we presented to them.

During this time we have kept our campaign at the top of the agenda. We’ve made politicians and the public take notice with a series of high profile demonstrations, letter-writing campaigns, petitions, fundraisers and media appearances.

Why is this important?
As we stand on the brink of climate and ecological breakdown, airports throughout the UK are trying to expand. Leeds Bradford, Bristol, Stansted, Manston, Southampton, Luton and Gatwick are pressing ahead with expansion plans. Supporters of each expansion claim that the increase in carbon emissions is small in a national context. However, the cumulative impact would be a huge increase in emissions at precisely the time we should be doing everything in our power to reduce them.

Leeds Bradford Airport expansion is a test case. The local authority has approved expansion, claiming that carbon emissions from international flights is not a matter for local authorities to consider! So we have called on the Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, to order a public inquiry so that the climate impact of expansion can be assessed in a national context.

This is not just about Leeds-Bradford. Approval of this application would open the floodgates of expansion at other regional airports. The government must intervene to stop the planned expansion of regional airports if it is to meet legally binding environmental targets and avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

You can hear it from the experts. Over 200 Leeds Uni Academics already agree.
https://www.galba.uk/post/press-release-246-uni-of-leeds-staff-and-researchers-ask-robert-jenrick-to-call-in-lba-decision

Most importantly please share with your friends and family. Tell them why this matters so much to you.

Thank you from GALBA - Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport