Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
weeks after over 100 separate agreements had been signed, including an agreement
for Manchester to be independently audited. The doubling of terminal capacity at
Birmingham did not need an inquiry at all.
Though a similar agreement has been reached in the south-east for Gatwick to
expand from 30 to 40 million passengers per annum (mppa) (Everitt, 2001), the
inquiry into Heathrow's proposed Terminal 5 (T5) took four years, followed by 18
months for the inspector to file his report, and at least another 18 months for a min-
isterial decision to be taken. The difficulties in the south-east include the huge scale
of traffic (over 100 mppa now, with demand forecast to rise to over 300 mppa by
2030), the consequent huge scale of impact and the need to balance local interests
with national ones because of the intercontinental nature of the traffic. The national
need is generally not accepted by the local communities, the local effects are mostly
negative, particularly at Heathrow, and they spread out far from the airports them-
selves (partly due to the lack of airspace capacity).
In the UK, beyond and in addition to such voluntary agreements between an
airport and its local community, the local balance of interests has been managed by
ensuring that, if satisfactory contractual agreements cannot be achieved voluntarily,
at least some minimum requirements are met. These typically derive from the out-
come of an environmental impact assessment (EIA), from the expectation that the
developer will be ISO 14001 compliant, from proper compensation for loss of value,
from planning guidance or legislation on noise and emissions limits, and from local
ordinances. They may also be imposed as a result of the inquiry recommendations.
Unless at least this level of mitigation can be achieved, it is unlikely that permission
for development would be granted. Even so, a considerable number of local people
and members of national pressure groups will still feel aggrieved. Any remaining dif-
ficulty may have to be resolved by ministerial approval of compulsory purchase orders
if the minister judges it to be right for the greater good, whether they be local con-
cerns or the nation's economic health.
However, judgement on the development is still largely based upon whether the
mitigated impacts of a proposed development are tolerable for the local communities.
There is, therefore, no overt attempt to achieve a balance. Rather, it is a question of
imposing no less than minimum acceptable impacts on the local communities, and
then allowing the developers and the other beneficiaries to take the surplus, as well
as the minimum viable return on the development. The crucial balance between
local and national issues has been increasingly decided after the inquiry by a group
of government ministers and their advisors who weight the concerns in a much less
transparent way, often resulting in decisions that bear little relationship to the inquiry
proceedings. Yet, now that many airports are in private hands, it is more important
that net benefits are shared equitably between the stakeholders, rather than being
biased towards owners or the nation as a whole.
UK SERAS methodology
In the UK again, the South-Eastern and East of England Regional Air Service Study
(SERAS) is considering development options for increasing London airport capac-
ity. The appraisal methodology has been decided and made explicit (DETR, 2000b),
treading a careful path between the transparency required to avoid accusations of
