SSE NEWS ARCHIVE - August to October 2004

Daffodils, cod, Christmas trees and the Highlands ski resorts could have become victims of global warming by 2050 according to an energy efficiency report today. Warmer weather will, instead, introduce vineyards to Scotland, stingrays and more types of sharks in our coastal waters as well as termites, scorpions and mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus and Dengue fever, the study - Forecasting the Future – says.

Published by the Energy Saving Trust, the body established by the government in 1992 after the Rio Earth Summit, the document details the likely effects of climate change on Britain if nothing is done to cut emissions of greenhouse gases or reduce energy use.

As much as £200bn-worth of property and infrastructure including 2m homes could be at risk from flooding and coastal erosion by the middle of the century, the projection suggests. The cost of buildings subsidence, exacerbated by weather extremes, could top £600m a year and storm damage could add another £800m to annual insurance claims.

"Flooding is a potential problem as winter rains grow heavier and sea levels rise" says the report, produced in conjunction with the UK Climate Impact Programme. "Investment will be needed to protect London and other key places from flooding as well as vulnerable installations such as nuclear power stations. Within 50 years parts of East Anglia will have to be heavily defended against rising seas. Some land could be returned to the sea in more managed retreats." One such controlled breach of flood defences was carried out on Humberside last year.

Average temperatures are expected to be between 1C and 4.5C higher by the end of the century, when golf courses will become increasingly expensive to maintain due to long hot summers.

The report is being released as part of Energy Efficiency Week and comes amid a flurry of climate change predictions and warnings that not enough is being done to save energy or provide alternative sources from fossil fuel. Under the Kyoto protocol and other EU agreements the UK must, by 2010, reduce its emissions of the six major greenhouse gases by 12.5 % compared with levels in 1990. The government has promised to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by the end of this decade and by 60% by 2050.

The Trust's projections are based on the presumption that such demanding targets cannot be met. Little can be done to halt global warming over the next 30-40 years because of the vast amount of such gases already released by burning fossil fuels, the Trust believes. But there is a chance to mitigate the worst impact of global warming beyond that date.

Last week the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) criticised the government for underestimating by 30% the true level of carbon dioxide emissions for which Britain is responsible. "The Prime Minister's strong words on climate change are still being undermined by failure to control CO2 emissions" said the organisation's director of campaigns, Andrew Lee. "Emissions at home are rising under Labour. In addition the economy is driving up emissions around the world." Food, manufactured goods and raw materials imported from abroad generate large CO2 emissions abroad, the WWF says, for which the UK consumers are responsible.

This week Barbara Young, chief executive of the Environment Agency, will reinforce the message that individual consumers must make important choices. Consumption and energy use are rocketing, she will tell a conference in Birmingham. The number of electrical devices used by households in England and Wales is, for example due to double this decade. The agency's estimate of the damage likely to be caused by flooding in 2080, if no action is taken to control global warming, is £26bn a year. Emissions of greenhouse gases will need to be cut by 75% in 2050 to prevent such dangers, she suggests. More than a quarter of all carbon emissions come from cars and 28% from homes, according to the Energy Saving Trust. "It is imperative that we become more aware of the energy we use in our homes and reduce our CO2 emissions" warns Philip Sellwood, the Trust's chief executive. "Every time a light is switched on or a video is left on standby, CO2 is emitted from a power station, causing damage to the environment."

The worst scenario for 2050 in the Trust's report are based on studies of the likely impact on the UK's environment. Lack of snow could render Scotland's ski resorts redundant in 20 years. Daffodils, bluebells and crocuses might disappear because of warmer winters, as would spruce trees. Cod would fail to flourish in warmer seas and could be replaced by tuna. Termites are already spreading north on the continent and are in France. Mosquitoes carrying fatal diseases could become a regular feature of the countryside. West Nile fever has already become endemic in the US due to rising temperatures. Poisonous spiders could also flourish without winter frosts.

OUR COMMENT: Of course individuals could do more, but only governments can initiate and enforce big changes, such as supporting renewable energy, promoting biofuels and low carbon technology, requiring developers to build energy efficient houses, AND not persist in encouraging the biggest potential polluter -aviation - to expand.

Pat Dale

Some of eastern England's prettiest areas are being forced to accept their share of nearly 500,000 new homes. Caroline McGhie reports on the plight of homeowners living in a 'petrified market'.

Gillian Coleby tends the pretty garden around her ancient, cream, lath-and-plaster thatched house at Pledgdon Green in Essex, and has done so for 40 years. "It is such a lovely garden and the countryside is beautiful," she says, "but I would much rather not be here." She has wanted to sell her five-bedroom house on the village green for more than two years. Pledgdon Green was once an untouched pocket of rural England, but Gillian has watched the roads around it clog with cars and the airspace fill with jets.

She now divides her time between the garden and hospital visits to her 72-year-old husband Roger, who in the past two years has had heart surgery and a stroke. "We desperately need to move into a smaller house near a shop," she says. "We were naive: we thought we would sell the house instantly."

It went on the market at £575,000 in April 2002. In May it was reduced to £525,000, in June to £495,000, and in December they took it off the market. Their home is in the most sensitive area of England: within the great swathe of new housing that John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, plans for the East, funnelling up the M11 corridor to Cambridge and onto Peterborough. A second runway for Stansted airport is proposed, as well as a link road from the A120 to the M11, and thousands of homes are likely to be built on the back of the new job opportunities and accessibility.

"We can't get on with our lives," says Gillian. Land Registry figures show that house prices in the area are in the doldrums. Values have dropped by an average of £34,000 per home across the Uttlesford district, affecting about 12,000 houses; while prices across Essex have increased by 31 per cent in the past two years, according to the Stop Stansted Expansion Campaign (SSEC).

Most homeowners prefer to keep silent about it, but the blight caused by the threat of expansion has prompted chartered surveyor Michael Snow, of Snow Walker Associates, to admit: "We're looking at a petrified housing market." According to Peter Sanders, the SSEC chairman: "We are concerned about the enormous urbanisation that comes with an airport because Uttlesford is the most rural district in Essex. The huge numbers of new people coming to the area will change the nature of towns and villages. If it goes ahead, 81 million passenger movements will make it busier than any other airport in the world."

This delicate band of countryside, forming an outer ring around the M25, runs from Luton, in the west, through Stevenage and Bishop's Stortford, and eastwards towards Southend. Last Friday, the planning panel for the East of England Regional Assembly met in Cambridge to finalise a plan for incorporating the 478,000 new houses that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister wants built by 2021. The panel had already drawn up a plan, but Lord Rooker, the Regeneration and Regional Development Minister, asked for another 18,000 to be added. New housing will help cure the affordability crisis and end the boom-bust cycle, says the Government. But who should take the extra homes?

No one, it seems. On Friday night, the assembly said no to more homes. After hundreds of studies and consultations, the number earmarked for Bedfordshire and Luton is 54,500 houses; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, 89,300; Essex, Southend and Thurrock, 131,000; Hertfordshire, 72,000; Norfolk, 72,600 and Suffolk, 58,600.

Behind the scenes, parts of Essex and Hertfordshire have been fighting to defend their territory. Cambridgeshire has been gung-ho about growth, but it too is rejecting the extra homes.

"We are not prepared to accept another 18,000 houses. We do not believe there is a case for it," says John Reynolds, the chairman of the planning panel. "It will be difficult to deliver what has already been agreed and we want to monitor jobs growth. If it doesn't happen, then we should not be building the houses.

"On current growth levels alone, we need £1.6 billion to cover infrastructure and affordable homes needed. The Government has got to put its hand in its pocket. If it doesn't, it can't expect local communities to do so."

The areas most likely to be affected include Basildon, Bedford, Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Colchester, Great Yarmouth, Harlow, Hemel Hempstead, Ipswich, King's Lynn, Lowestoft, Luton-Dunstable, Norwich, Peterborough, Southend-on-Sea, Stansted, Stevenage, Thurrock and the M11 corridor (specifically Broxbourne, Braintree, Bishop's Stortford and Great Dunmow). Not all are beauty spots, but the development will come close to some of the prettiest parts of Essex and Hertfordshire.

Henry Oliver, the head of planning and local government at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is seriously concerned. "This area looks as if it will get it in the neck because it is not an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty or Green Belt, but that doesn't mean it isn't old, interesting and full of character," he says.

There is growing conflict between local authorities and the Government. At a conference on the Eastern Vision, organised by FPDSavills last week, Andrew Wells, the director of sustainable communities for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, disappointed his audience by announcing at the start that he could not speak about the eastern corridor because it was "too controversial".

But there is no doubt that the Government is determined. It is leaning on local authorities to deliver - asking them to allocate more sites than they need; setting up elite teams called "delivery vehicles" to put together large developments; using regional planning for arm-wrestling between "optimist" and "pessimist" local authorities. There is a government blacklist of 45 authorities, identified as not delivering their targets. A housing supply steering group, headed by Lord Rooker, is also being set up to investigate non-delivery. "We need to have a change in attitudes," he says. He is particularly pleased that Milton Keynes has agreed to take 44,000 extra homes above its allocation.

Meanwhile, homeowners are stuck, unable to trade up and release housing at the much-needed lower end of the market. A couple of miles from Great Dunmow, in the village of Great Easton, Anita Armitage and her husband David tried to sell their three-bedroom terrace cottage from October 2003 to May 2004. In spite of 62 viewings, it didn't sell. "It should have been worth £225,000, but we put it on at £185,000. All the talk of a new Stansted airport runway put buyers off," she says, even though they lie outside the compensation zone. She has a 20-month-old daughter, Isabella, and another baby on the way. "We may be stuck here for 12 to 15 years and there isn't one room big enough for our children to play in."

In Cambridge, housebuilding will grow by 40 per cent to about 2,800 per year. Cambridge airport will be moved and 14,000 homes built in its place.

A new town of 10,000 houses is to be built at North Stowe, to the north west. The new town of Cambourne, half built, may rise from 3,500 to 5,000 homes. South of the city, near Great and Little Shelford, another 2,500 houses are planned. Saffron Walden is blight-free but close to Cambridge and the M11. The influx of people could change the town centre. "The narrowness of the lanes and the lack of public transport means that they can't build any more round here," says Tony Mullucks, of Mullucks Wells estate agents.

Bishop's Stortford is already a busy commuter haven and losing its market-town image. Stansted airport sits on its shoulder. "Once there are flights to America, it will bring in a whole new range of buyers. Think of Slough and Windsor where prices are big," says Jeremy Smallman, of Strutt & Parker. Homeowners fear Great Dunmow nearby will expand like Crawley did in the shadow of Gatwick.

In Stevenage, as with other areas in the region, low unemployment of about two per cent makes it difficult for businesses to expand. It needs top-of-the-market housing to attract the right people. The town plans 6,500 houses by 2021 and a new Stevenage extension of 5,000 to 8,000 houses. In north Hertfordshire, another 17,000 homes are to be shoe-horned in by 2021. North Herts District Council believes that plans to expand Luton airport will make it the size of Gatwick, with a five-fold increase in passengers. Together with other local authorities, it is seeking a judicial review of government policy in early December.

OUR COMMENT: Will all these new houses be energy efficient? Would they all be needed if the government decided that airport expansion was a non starter in view of the serious risk of accelerating climate change? Read "Going for Growth", the recent report from the IPPR described in Recent News. It asks the question - is all this growth really sustainable?

Pat Dale

Here follows the main body of his speech - some of his views are relevant to Stansted.

He admits that it may be necessary to make a case to the CAA for the cross subsidising of Stansted but rather surprisingly seems to believe that such a decision can be left for several years!

He started by asking - What is BAA?

* BAA is widely regarded as the world's most successful airport company. We are totally private sector funded and our investments, nearly £1 million a week in Scotland, cost the taxpayer nothing.

* We are an international business operating in a truly global industry. However, we are obviously a business which is bound into communities and neighbourhoods across the United Kingdom and throughout the countries in which we have interests. Additionally, we have a duty to the wider public. This extends from providing clean, working and friendly airports for the travelling public and our airline customers to leading pioneering work to make airports across the world safe and more secure at a time when they are without doubt in the line of fire.

* In fact, BAA is a prime example of what a local MP, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has referred to in the past as a "public interest company". We operate at the boundary between private sector obligations to our shareholders and customers and public sector responsibilities to provide quality public infrastructure for the country.

* We also drive national efforts, particularly here in Scotland, to attract and sustain new air routes.

* By our nature, it is very often our airports which link the UK, and Scotland, with many points across the world and I am proud of the way in which we are developing a strong and sustainable route network for Scotland. This good work will continue, as will our financial incentives for carriers.

* On an international level, this is undoubtedly a time of considerable uncertainty.

* The constant threat of terrorism and all its implications for airport security, coupled with rising oil prices and the well-documented financial challenges faced by some international airlines, especially the American carriers, means that we, BAA, have to be more focused on the future, and our efficiency, than ever before.

* Let me dwell on the issue of airport security for a moment. Safety and security are the foundations on which the aviation business is built. If you allow these foundations to be undermined, then public confidence, and the business, will fall down. It's as simple as that.

* That is why BAA is spending around £40 million a year on safety and security.

* In addition to the constant pressures faced by a business operating in the sights of global terrorism, there is an ever-present context of change.

* There is unprecedented consolidation taking place within the world airline industry – it is no secret that low-cost airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair are competing hard with the more traditional carriers, like BA and BMI. They are driving costs down across the board in their relentless pursuit of passengers. The impacts of this strategy are felt by the whole industry on a daily basis.

* A new generation of airports, for example Stansted and the secondary, out-of-town airports favoured by the likes of Ryanair, are vying for market share with existing European hubs such as Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Schipol.

* BAA must react cleverly, and continuously, to that change. To do this, we have spent the last two years focusing more than ever on cost, efficiency and providing better customer service, alongside that important and consistent investment in safety and security.

* Our ability to get this right has been brought into sharp focus by the Government's 2003 White Paper.

* For example, there has been considerable comment and speculation around whether the new runway at Stansted will require what is known as "system pricing" or "cross subsidy" by users of other airports in the South East.

* The CAA's policy states that our South East Airports must be run and regulated on a stand-alone basis, however we will reserve the right to make the case for cross-subsidy if there are compelling reasons for doing so.

* Today, it is far too early to say whether such compelling reasons exist or are likely to exist. We will not know for some years. However, if we think the reasons are compelling, it will be our duty to argue the case and we will do so.

* Looking broadly at the future, it is my view that BAA's continued success or otherwise rests around three important criteria.

1. The first revolves around the "on the day" airport experience. Our ability to provide clean, working and friendly airports is an important basis on which we will be judged by airline customers, travellers and our broad range of stakeholders in politics, the media and beyond. That again includes safety and security.

2. To maintain and increase the confidence of our investors, we must spend capital wisely. I will talk later about our extensive capital investment programme for Scotland but rest assured – particularly if you are a shareholder - we have vigorous processes to ensure that capital expenditure is directed only to where it is required and decisions are carefully scrutinised.

3. To grow our airports, we must consistently earn the valuable support of our stakeholders, from our neighbours in the community to our national and local political leaders. Effectively, we can't simply decide to grow - we need permission to do so –and we are constantly alive to that fact.

* Perhaps another important element of how we are judged is one which is occupying minds in Scotland at the moment. It is a question around the ability of private sector companies to deliver important public services.

* There is no doubt that our facilities must be of a standard and quality which meets the needs and demands of our airlines as well as the travelling public. That can often present a challenge in itself – on one hand I have airlines lobbying me for lower airport charges (and in Scotland that is what they are getting).

* But on the other hand, the UK, and Scotland, rightly expects world-class, high-quality airport facilities which can comfortably handle the millions of passengers a year who use them and adequately serve future generations.

* I know that the Scottish Executive has asked Eric Milligan to visit six of our seven airports in the UK to judge what the first impressions of international visitors might be. So the quality of our facilities, and the welcome we offer, is clearly viewed as an important element of our collective ability to develop tourism in support of regional and national economies.

* That brings me neatly to the politics of aviation. BAA operates in a political environment – that is never in question. There are many areas of our industry – from the development of long-term strategic policy such as last year's White Paper to our role in promoting national security and striking the right balance between the promotion of social and economic growth and reducing environmental impacts, all of which can only be addressed by Government.

* Only ministers can effectively and credibly balance the long-term economic needs of the UK and its regions with local communities, which not surprisingly expect the impacts of aviation to be managed to their ultimate satisfaction. We have long maintained that it would not be right to allow a private company to make decisions, the impact of which is felt well beyond the airport fence.

* The environment is critical to me, as it is to BAA. That is why we are at the forefront of the debate on how the impacts of our industry – climate change, noise, air quality etc - are managed in the best interests of the environment and of the economy.

* Despite the fact that BAA does not fly the planes which cause aviation's biggest impact on climate change, we acknowledge that, without innovative solutions to environmental impacts, the ability to grow our airports will be constrained.

* During 2003, we led a vocal lobby which seeks to bring aviation into the forthcoming EU Emissions Trading scheme. We continue to advocate this proposition in our regular discussions with Government and EU officials.

* In short, emissions trading is where industries which cannot reduce their own emissions buy permits from those industries which can, within a stringent cap.

* This has been identified as the most effective mechanism for industry to meet its emissions targets quickly and at low cost.

* In principle, it should not matter who generates the emissions, as long as the total volume generated does not breach the cap.

* That is one area in which BAA is leading a constructive debate on international policy, which we hope will lead to a long-term solution which promotes the competitiveness of UK aviation and removes the need for blunt instruments such as Air Passenger Duty, which puts British aviation at a distinct competitive disadvantage.

Mike Clasper went on to describe BAA's plans to expand in Scotland, notably in Edinburgh.

OUR COMMENT: In spite of all this optimism there are many difficulties to overcome (other than SSE!) before BAA can build another runway for Stansted.

Pat Dale

BAA has dismissed the rejection of a second runway at Stansted by regional planners.

The airport's operator said it would continue preparing a planning application despite the East of England's Regional Assembly (EERA) slamming the proposals on economic and environmental grounds recently.

At a meeting of EERA recently the assembly said the association of regional prosperity with massive airport growth was not certain.

And at the planning panel of EERA on Friday, the committee considered the controversial regional spatial strategy for the East of England up to 2021, which saw plans for nearly 500,000 homes in the region given the thumbs up.

But the panel said the regional strategy 'should not support development of a second runway at Stansted, principally on the grounds of its environmental impact'.

But a BAA spokesman said the rejection was only EERA's opinion and would not affect its work on preparing a planning application for the second runway.

A long-running tussle over night flights and noise pollution at Brussels Zaventem airport has ended with courier firm DHL announcing that it will site its main European hub elsewhere.

The firm said on Thursday that a letter sent by the Belgian authorities earlier this week insisting that it use quieter aircraft demonstrated that there was "no political support" for its project.

As a result, the firm said it would no longer create 1,400 jobs in Brussels, and from 2008 could reduce jobs there by up to 1,700.

OUR COMMENT: This situation could arise with most low cost airlines. Mitigation measures cost money. Raised airport charges will not be welcome either. Ryanair has already said it will not pay for a "gold plated runway".

Pat Dale

For all transport climate change costs are the highest at 30% of the total, with air pollution and accidents following at 27% and 24%. Total costs for all categories (which includes accidents) and for all countries in 2000 is estimated as 650 billion Euro. Road transport is the biggest offender, with 83.7% of the costs, air transport is second at 14%. Rail is only 1.7% and water 0.4%.

When the separate categories are averaged passenger aviation is responsible for 3 times as much climate change costs as cars and 8 times as much as rail. Aviation Freight costs are 14 times as much as lorries and vans, and 72 times that of rail.

Not surprisingly the Report recommends that external costs must be internalised and suggests a road pricing scheme for cars, a tax on lorries, and a realistic fuel tax to include aviation.

Pat Dale

The European Commission has approved eight more national allocation plans (Naps) for the EU carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions trading scheme. The development means industry in 16 countries is now cleared to start trading from the scheme's scheduled launch just 73 days from now. It is uncertain how many of the remaining nine will be ready in time.

On Wednesday the Commission approved plans from Belgium, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal and Slovakia. Each government had agreed to make cuts in the number of emission allowances to be allocated to participating companies in the scheme's 2005-7 phase, it added.

France and Finland's plans were also approved, but with conditions. In particular, the Commission believes the French government's proposal is based on exaggerated emissions growth forecasts and wants it to cut allocations by a further 4.5m tonnes.

The French government has already agreed to a second demand by bringing 750 more installations in to the scheme. The Commission's quibble with Finland is more minor. It wants Helsinki to extend the scheme to four plants on the I?and islands in the Baltic Sea.

Wednesday's announcement marks a second wave of approvals for national plans. A first series were cleared in July (ED 07/07/04 www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=17021). Since then, however, the German government has challenged one of the conditions imposed on its plan at the European court of justice (ED 21/09/04 www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=17305

Berlin is defending its right to make "ex post" adjustments to the number of allowances in circulation once the scheme has started. Several other member states had intended to use a similar mechanism. All have now dropped their plans under pressure from the Commission.

Added to the fact that draft plans from Italy, Spain and Poland are incomplete or have yet to be assessed, the German and French problems leave question marks hanging over trading in five of the EU's six largest countries.

According to the Commission, plans approved so far - with or without conditions - cover 7,200 of the 12,000 plants due to have emissions caps. The allowances sanctioned amount to 3.8bn tonnes of CO2. Of the nine EU states whose plans have not yet been approved, only Greece has yet to submit even a draft.

The Commission says it has forced cuts of 48m tonnes of allowances from the 16 approved plans - or just over 1% of the total amount proposed. The biggest cuts - up to 20% - were in plans from the new eastern states, where Kyoto targets will be easily met. Some governments there had mistakenly believed they could allocate many more allowances than firms needed, allowing them to make big profits on the surplus.

It remains to be seen whether the Commission's efforts will placate critics of the Naps. The UK has complained of potential distortions of competition.

OUR COMMENT: When is the UK going to propose the inclusion of aviation? BAA supports it!

Pat Dale

Government strategies forcing higher growth and hundreds of thousands of new houses on an already prosperous south-east of England are challenged today by a thinktank which is close to Tony Blair.

Questioning the region's ability to handle further expansion, it warns that the south should instead concentrate on coping with current pressures, including congestion, pollution, disparities within the region and the lack of affordable housing.

In a report certain to raise more doubts about John Prescott's plan for four big growth areas in the south and east of England, the Institute for Public Policy Research bluntly says that the case for ever-faster economic expansion is wrong.

It seeks to demolish the argument of government agencies pushing for further growth to match continental counterparts, using figures showing that the south already compares well with mainland Europe's most prosperous regions.

The region is already on a par with all the "well-known centres of commerce outside London and Paris": Milan, Turin, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich, and Stuttgart, for instance.

The report labels two other arguments as myths: that the south has an overheating labour market, characterised by skills shortages, and that its future lies in the "knowledge economy".

It argues that problems caused by skills shortages and gaps do not appear to be a bigger problem in the south than elsewhere, while the region's ability to draw graduates from the rest of the UK and overseas might give it an advantage.

Pushing for a "knowledge economy" is labelled an ill-defined concept and a throwback to an industrial policy of "picking winners" which had little success in the second half of the 20th century.

Research commissioned by public agencies in the south defines such an economy to include only a "handful of high-technology manufacturing and service activities". That definition excludes business and financial services - "the obvious area of comparative advantage for the greater south-east".

Prepared for an IPPR-led commission on sustainable development in the south-east, whose membership includes some of the major players in the region, the report will be seized on by critics of the expansion plans.

Those opponents range from amenity groups such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England to northern MPs and some councils in the south fearful of the impact growth will have on the countryside.

In one critical section, the report notes: "Further increasing the rate of economic growth in the south-east does not seem a high priority relative to dealing with disparities in prosperity within the region and coping with the problems that current levels of relative economic success pose - particularly in terms of traffic congestion, the lack of affordable housing, the use of natural resources and the quality of the environment."

But it cautions that such a critique should not be confused with arguing for no growth, or lower growth. It says it is merely suggesting that the current rate of growth is acceptable as an economic objective, although it "will pose challenges for achieving environmental objectives in the region".

The report comes amid signs of a policy re-appraisal by Gordon Brown and Mr Prescott, who are charged with pushing through the southern growth areas, principally the 40-mile Thames Gateway corridor running from east London to Essex and Kent.

In a speech in Newcastle upon Tyne last week the chancellor, accompanied by the deputy prime minister, said that a key theme in Labour's next manifesto would be how to make all regions more productive, prosperous and wealthy.

But he warned that balanced economic growth becomes impossible "if we have unemployment and emigration and the under-use of resources in one part of the country, and congestion and overcrowding and huge inflationary pressures in the other".

Jobless rates in the north-east, where unemployment is rising, contrary to the national trend, were twice those of the south-east, he noted, while business start-ups were only half the national average.

Both Mr Brown and Mr Prescott are pushing a new initiative, known as the Northern Way, which is based on improving the economies of big cities such as Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield as well as surrounding growth areas to challenge the south.

But the Brown-Prescott initiative sits uneasily alongside a public service agreement (PSA) between the government and its nine regional development agencies, updated this year. It is aimed at making improvements in the economic performance of all regions while reducing the prosperity gap between the strongest and the weakest - which is currently widening, according to the IPPR.

The full Report "Going for Growth" is available on www.ippr.org

OUR COMMENT: With nearly 500,000 extra houses pushed into the Eastern Region, mainly in the Peterborough/Cambridge/Stansted/London corridor, these comments are very relevant to Uttlesford and the areas round Stansted - where the recent consultant's report has identified Harlow, Bishop's Stortford, Great Dunmow and Braintree as areas able to absorb extra housing, though they have made it clear that there will be environmental losses and traffic problems, and that all developments should be employment led. Should the draft Regional Plan be accepting these extra houses?

Pat Dale

Diminishing oil reserves will curtail air traffic in a decade or so, and the suggested expansion of airports and associated runways is likely to lead to a surplus of capacity. It is not just a question of price or affordability. An exponentially increasing annual amount of jet fuel when extracted from a declining quantity of crude oil at lower yields will accelerate the emptying of the reserves.

When in 2002, the UK Department of Transport announced a consultation on airport runway capacity, it was assumed that the usage of air transport will double by 2015 and triple by 2030. This is achieved by an exponential annual growth in air traffic of 5.5% until 2015 or 4% over the entire period to 2030.

Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturer, predicts an annual global growth rate in passenger traffic of 4.5% beginning in 2000 at 3.2 x 1012 passenger-km/annum (or 2 x 1012 air-miles/annum). If sustained, this would rise to 12 x 1012 passenger-km/annum (or 7.4 x 1012 air-miles/annum) in 2030. The cumulative passenger-km over the thirty years totals 204 x 1012 passenger-km (or 127 x 1012 air-miles).

With the introduction of super-jetliners, Airbus expects to reduce the jet fuel requirement by 2% per annum, so that a 4.5% increase per annum in passenger traffic would result in a 2.5% increase in jet fuel consumption per annum. This equates with a consumption in the thirteen years up to 2015 of 2900 million tonnes of jet fuel and in the twenty-eight years up to 2030 of 8200 million tonnes of jet fuel.

(160 million t/annum in 2000, 272 million mt/a in 2015, 423 mt/a in 2030)

The reduction in the yield of jet fuel as the production of North Sea crude (25% yield) declines means more Middle East crude (8-10% yield) has to be used. The other refinery products will have to be produced in a greater proportion to jet fuel than currently is the case. For jet fuel production to expand by 2.5% per annum oil reserves would have to be depleted at a greater rate unless adjustments to refineries are made.

Although a refinery product profile can be modified by installing additional equipment, more fuel is consumed internally, reducing the overall output while increasing the yield of jet fuel. An exponential growth rate in air traffic of 4.5% over twenty-eight years would require an amount of jet fuel impossible to procure.

Total oil production is expected to rise from 27 Gb in 2002 to a peak of 31 Gb in 2010. It falls to 29 Gb in 2015 when the oil requirement for jet fuel manufacture will be 2.2 Gb (or 8% of oil production), but by 2030 oil production may well have fallen further to 19 Gb, while the oil requirement for jet fuel manufacture would have risen to 3.4 Gb (or 18% of oil production). In 2000 jet fuel comprised 4.5% of total oil products. With falling jet fuel yield, demand for other oil products will make the attainment of 8%, let alone 18% of oil products as jet fuel impossible.

In the period to 2030 total oil production rises then falls, but the move to Middle East crude means that throughout the period the yield of jet fuel derived from oil falls. So an exponentially-rising demand for jet fuel intrinsic in the forecasts for air traffic growth cannot be supplied from oil. Putting this another way, the amount of jet fuel that can be obtained from 4.5% of the proven reserves of 1048 Gb is 6400 million tonnes of jet fuel equivalent to only 145 x 1012 passenger-km (or 93 x 1012 passenger-miles). Hypothetically, it has been shown above that if global air traffic were to grow exponentially at 4.5%/annum as predicted, 204 x 1012 passenger-km (or 127 x 1012 passenger-miles) would be accumulated by 2030. The industry would have used up its air-miles in 2026, well before then!

The growth in air traffic envisaged will not be attained as the oil producers will restrict production to conserve their inventory throughout the time span envisaged. Although the synthesis of jet fuel from natural gas or coal is possible, there is no potential substitute for oil-based jet fuel capable of supporting the prospective size of the industry.

In recognition of this fuel problem, Airbus is developing a modification strategy, whereby liquid hydrogen produced by electrolysis and cryogenic liquefaction is substituted for jet fuel. This requires a hydrogen infrastructure based on the availability of enormous amounts of electrical power. It also means that aircraft have to be specially adapted to run on liquid hydrogen fuel.

Only flights between airports with supplies of liquid hydrogen would be possible and flights diverted to airports without such a facility would be stranded. In turn supplies of liquid hydrogen depend on an availability of local hydro or geothermal power as might be sufficient in New Zealand or Iceland respectively.

He goes on to analyse the possible sources of hydrogen and the energy that would be required to produce it. He concludes that with all the difficulties lying ahead in supplying enough electrical power the growth in air traffic contemplated in the UK would be impossible to fuel by liquid hydrogen.

A European environmental expert has criticised as "simplistic and inaccurate" a recent calculation by two UK specialists implying that the EU's goal of becoming a "hydrogen society" by 2050 is unrealistic.

The calculation drew significant media coverage, including in international scientific journal Nature, when it was published (ED 08/10/04 www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=17434).

Jason Anderson of the Institute for European environmental policy (IEEP) hit back. The research simply repeats the truism that getting to a renewables-based hydrogen economy will be a challenge, he told Environment Daily, but makes no useful contribution to the debate.

Andrew and Jim Oswald's calculations assume that road vehicles will require as much energy from hydrogen in 50 years time as they do now from oil. Yet "no one in their right mind would suggest employing vehicles as woefully inefficient as ours now in a hydrogen economy". Instead, efficiency improvements of up to a factor of five are on the drawing table.

Future offshore wind turbines could be much larger than the benchmark 3MW capacity figure assumed by the Oswalds, Mr Anderson said. And wind energy could be supplemented by biofuels, which, according to an IEEP study focusing on the UK, could in future fuel road transport entirely, potentially via hydrogen.

Cardinal Murphy O'Connor and Archbishop Hope lead the campaign

A coalition of churches has begun a campaign to curb climate change, by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

"Operation Noah" aims to highlight warnings that atmospheric warming from burning carbon fuels is altering climate patterns and raising sea levels.

The campaign is being organised on behalf of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

Lead figures include the Archbishop of York, David Hope, and the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor.

They are urging people to change their lifestyles to burn less fossil fuel.

Delegates attending a conference in Coventry on Saturday to launch the campaign were asked to sign a covenant promising to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

They were also encouraged to put pressure on the UK government and world leaders to do the same.

The conference was followed by a parade through Coventry and a speech by Dr David Hallman, co-ordinator of the World Council of Churches' climate change programme, at the city's cathedral.

Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission and director of Forum for the Future, said he was delighted churches were taking up the issue of climate change.

Fragile environment

He said: "We could easily sleepwalk into an ever more dangerous future.

"Operation Noah is a wake-up call, not only to people of faith but to the whole of society.

"It makes us stop and think what we are doing to the earth and dares us to live by a new set of values."

BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said the campaign was "the boldest co-ordinated step yet by senior church leaders to intervene in the political debate over climate change".

Archbishop Hope and Cardinal Murphy O'Connor said human development was standing at a crossroads on the brink of ruining a fragile environment.

Other church leaders backing the campaign include the Archbishop of Glasgow Mario Conti, David Kerr, Methodist Superintendent of the Belfast Central Mission, and Sister Eluned Williams, former President of Methodism in Wales.

In July, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said excessive use of fuel threatened the viability of humans as a species and threatened them with vicious conflict.

He called for a tax on greenhouse gas emissions.

A second runway at Stansted was rejected today by the planning panel of the East of England Regional Assembly.

The regional planning panel was considering the controversial regional spatial strategy for the East of England up to 2021.

The panel agreed the regional strategy "should not support development of a second runway at Stansted, principally on the grounds of its environmental impact".

Uttlesford District Council's leader, Cllr Alan Dean, who attended the meeting, said: "this democratic decision by the whole of the east of England shows that opposition to another runway is not just a local campaign. This sends a strong message to the Government that their aviation policy on Stansted is unacceptable".

Government plans to build nearly 500,000 new homes in the eastern counties have been approved by members of the region's assembly.

The planning panel of the East of England Regional Assembly gave the go-ahead to proposals for 478,000 new homes in a corridor between Stansted, Essex and Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, over the next 17 years.

But John Reynolds, chairman of the assembly's planning panel, said any fears that the region might be swamped were unjustified.

He said the aim of the regional assembly and the Government was to "make life better" and cater for the expected economic growth in the eastern region.

The planning panel's recommendations are expected to be ratified by the full East of England Regional Assembly next month.

The proposals will then be subjected to lengthy public consultation and the assembly's final recommendations are expected to land on the desk of deputy prime minister John Prescott, who has overall governmental responsibility for planning, in 2006.

The panel objected to Government proposals for an additional 18,000 homes - on top of the proposed 478,000.

Members, who met in Cambridge, also opposed the building of a second runway at Stansted airport.

The East of England Regional Assembly is made up of councillors from local authorities across the eastern region and is operating as a steering group at the centre of the debate about the proposed development.

The Government says the eastern region needs new homes to cater for the anticipated growth in high-tech industries over the next two decades. Ministers also want to provide affordable housing for key workers such as teachers, police officers and firefighters within reach of London.

Planned new homes could put pressure on infrastructure

A controversial plan to build 478,000 homes across east England has been given initial backing. An East of England Regional Assembly panel has backed the plans, which cover an area stretching from Norfolk to Buckinghamshire. Critics say the new housing would cause significant environmental damage and water shortages.

The panel rejected proposals for a further 18,000 homes between Stansted and Cambridge.

"The case has not yet been adequately made for those additional houses," a panel statement said.

Funding plea

It also warned against unsustainable development and called for the government to fund essential infrastructure improvement.

John Reynolds, chairman of the planning panel and a Conservative councillor in Cambridgeshire, said £1.6 billion would need to be spent on infrastructure to make the development sustainable.

"This is a wake-up call to government," he said.

"If the government wants houses, if the government wants development and prosperity for the east of England, it has got to make sure it provides the resources."

But he rejected claims the development would mean the region would be swamped.

"We want to ensure there are homes for people moving to the area and homes for people who are homeless at the moment in the area," he said.

Urban sprawl totally changes the character of a community

"The aim isn't to swamp small rural communities but hopefully make those communities more sustainable."

The panel decided to hold a review of housing numbers in around three years.

The proposals will still need to be ratified by the full assembly in a meeting on 5 November before going to public consultation.

A spokesman for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister said it would not be appropriate to comment on the panel's decision until after the full assembly meeting.

The housing is scheduled to be built by 2021, mainly along the M1 and M11 motorways.

Areas expected to take the brunt of it include a 'growth corridor' from Peterborough through Cambridge, Stevenage and Harlow as well as Milton Keynes and the Thames Gateway Development.

The government's plans aim to provide key workers such as nurses, teachers and police officers with affordable housing that is within range of London.

Water fears

The plans have sparked opposition from environmentalists.

They say such a large development could trigger severe water problems - both with the supply of water and an increased risk of flooding where tarmac is laid on existing fields.

They also say wildlife habitats will be damaged and the historic character of many of the region's ancient towns and villages could be altered.

BBC Radio 4 rural affairs correspondent Tom Heap said the feeling of "broad unease" had not grown into angry opposition among residents.

That is because they cannot as yet say "This is going to happen in a field near me," he stressed.

But North Hertfordshire Conservative councillor Richard Thake, who also sits on the panel, said: "People are very frightened indeed about what might come out of all this."

'1% development'

The plans were defended by the minister for regeneration, Jeff Rooker. He said that even if all the government's housing plans for the next 20 years went ahead, "it would only take 1% more of green field land" for urban use.

However, shadow housing minister John Hayes called that an "extraordinary" calculation that included Britain's national parks and most remote areas.

Ministers are not expected to receive the authority's final recommendations until 2006.

Britain's trade deficit widened to a record £11.2 billion in the three months to August, from £9.1 billion in the previous three months, the latest figures show.

The Office for National Statistics has also had to revise the country's trade in services downwards by almost £1.4 billion since the start of the year, leaving Britain's trade balance in a markedly worse condition.

The ONS said the revisions were because Britain's exports of financial services and earnings from tourism had been lower than previously thought.

Michael Saunders, an economist at Citigroup, said that while the £4 billion trade deficit for August was lower than January's record £4.3 billion, it "keeps the deficit on a worsening trend". He said that trade had "cut about 0.2pc off gross domestic product growth" in the third quarter.

Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at Gerrard, said that the deficit stood at 5.2pc of gross domestic product - "a little below the peaks seen in the late 1980s" when it reached 5.9pc.

The owners of one of a pair of semi-detached homes will be eligible for support if Stansted airport is expanded, while the owners of the other will not. A boundary for determining which homeowners will be included in a scheme to prop up the housing market close to the airport cuts through the village of Takeley in Essex, dividing a street and even a house.

BAA, which owns Stansted airport, has offered a guarantee to homeowners that they will not lose money if they sell their homes and will receive the full market price - deemed to be the 2002 price plus an increase in line with the general Essex property market.

The boundary to decide who will be eligible for this scheme is based on a "noise contour", of predicted noise levels from the expanded airport.

Trevor Allen, the chairman of the local parish council, said: "We have been put in an impossible position - one half of a pair of semi-detached houses is included in the compensation zone and the other half not. This map has been drawn up using noise levels and does not take into account that we are a community not just a thin line on a chart. The BAA does not seem to realise it is talking about real lives and real property. People here are extremely angry and upset - we could be talking many thousands of pounds difference in identical adjoining houses. There are around 390 properties in the heart of Takeley who will get compensation and around the same number that won't."

Keith Bonnage, a retired estate surveyor who lives in one of the boundary properties with his wife Patricia, said: "The map we were sent was to such a small scale that it was impossible to see who was in and who wasn't. I called BAA and they told me that I was. This is bound to cause a lot of confusion." His next-door neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: "I seem to be just outside the boundary. It is causing quite a stir that some people are in the boundary and some are outside. We have lived here for 17 years and now our lives are upside down. We have worked hard and paid off our mortgage, but we are losing money."

Mark Davison, a spokesman for Stansted Airport, said: "Wherever you put a boundary, there's going to be someone who's just outside it. It was based on a recognised noise contour scheme." He said that the idea of the scheme was to underpin the local property market, allowing people to buy and sell in the knowledge that its full market value is protected. The Government has indicated that Stansted is its preferred airport to have a second runway by 2012. However, its owner, BAA, still needs to apply for planning permission and a public inquiry is expected before the expansion is confirmed.

Luton has had a tough gig in recent years. The Bedfordshire town has been battered by the decline of the motor industry, it is lambasted for its poor architecture and was recently voted the crappiest place in Britain. But never fear, Ryanair is here.

The Irish airline is launching nine routes linking Luton airport to destinations such as Dinard, Esbjerg, Reus and Bergamo - in France, Denmark, Spain and Italy to non-geographers. According to deputy chief executive Michael Cawley, this will involve $240m (£130m) of investment and will create 1,000 new jobs. Who needs a Vauxhall car factory?

But before Cawley is awarded the freedom of the borough, these splendid assertions warrant a closer examination.

Ryanair's $240m is the catalogue price of buying the four Boeing 737-800s which Ryanair intends to base at Luton. Leaving aside the fact that the money is being invested in Seattle, rather than Bedfordshire, Ryanair admits that as Boeing's second biggest customer it is not paying anything close to the catalogue price. So the figure is, to put it mildly, figurative.

On the employment front, Ryanair will only recruit 120 people. The rest of the new jobs, the airline claims, will be generated by an extra million foreign visitors annually.

But four of the new routes are existing services which are being shifted from Stansted - so half of the jobs are merely migrating from Essex.

Nobody would deny that Ryanair's expansion is welcome news for the local economy. But why the need for such hyperbole?

You can fool some of the people some of the time - but you can't make a monkey out of the people of Luton.

OUR COMMENT: Or the people who work at Stansted.

Pat Dale

The imposition of a tax on jet fuel by the European Union has been delayed for at least three years following tough behind-the-scenes negotiations between EU member states and the US at the assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, which ended at the weekend in Montreal.

Any move to introduce a kerosene tax will face tough opposition from European airlines, which are already struggling to cope with the surge in oil prices.

Several carriers including Lufthansa, Air France and British Airways were forced last week to make big increases in their fuel surcharges on passenger fares.

Under the terms of a compromise resolution passed by the assembly of ICAO, a UN agency with 188 contracting states, it was agreed that no taxes or charges related to climate change could come into effect until after the organisation's next assembly in 2007.

The UK government, which is leading efforts in Europe to have aviation included in a second stage of the EU emissions trading scheme, said there had been "a very difficult situation" at ICAO.

The US had sought to block any global move to introduce a kerosene tax, while EU member states wanted to keep "all possible solutions" open, including the imposition of taxes and charges, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental campaigners have accused the US of "once again trying to scupper international efforts to combat climate change".

The UK transport department (DfT) said that European states had accepted that, while preparatory work could be done, no climate change related charges could come into effect until after the next ICAO assembly in 2007.

The DfT said this was acceptable as it represented "a realistic timescale" for putting any market-based measures in place.

The UK has made the inclusion of aviation in EU emissions trading from 2008 one of the priorities for its presidency of the EU in the second half of next year. It had been concerned that US-led action at ICAO could have restricted its freedom of action.

Jacques Barrot, the incoming EU transport commissioner, said at his recent confirmation hearing that he wanted to evaluate the prospects for imposing a kerosene tax on intra-European Community flights, which were not up against international competition.

Under the terms of the 1944 Chicago Convention, which set the rules governing international aviation, countries have agreed globally not to impose taxes on aviation fuel used in international flights, and this exemption is written into hundreds of bilateral air services treaties.

Mr Barrot said the absence of excise duties on kerosene was a problem given the environmental impact of aviation.

Alistair Darling, UK transport secretary, said at the weekend, that the hostility of many countries to the European position on aviation's greenhouse gas emissions was "puzzling. We must recognise the problem we face and take urgent action to tackle these emissions."

The ICAO resolution urged countries not to implement greenhouse gas emissions charges unilterally prior to the issue being considered again by the next ICAO assembly.

It recognised for the first time, however, that imposing such charges on local airlines was "not precluded" in a region, where the action was mutually agreed by member states.

OUR COMMENT: It is surprising that it does not occur to Alistair Darling that other countries may be somewhat mystified by the somewhat schizoid attitude of the UK government who put the need to reduce greenhouse gases at the top of their international agenda yet still persist in endeavouring to encourage a huge air traffic expansion on the questionable grounds that it is necessary for the UK economy and essential that UK citizens should be able to afford cheap airborne holidays. The government should "do as it wishes to be done by" - taking the advice given by the late Earl of Chesterfield to his son in 1747, described as the "surest method of pleasing".

Pat Dale

The 35th triennial UN ICAO Assembly in Montreal ended Friday 8th October 2004 by agreeing a complex resolution that allows Europe a mandate to impose a tough, comprehensive environmental protection regime for air transport that could include taxing aviation fuel, en-route emissions charges and a mandatory emissions trading scheme throughout its member states. These fiscal measures would be aimed at controlling and reducing the growing climate change impacts of aircraft exhaust emissions by internalising the external costs of climate change, effectively adding a climate change levy in one form or another to airline ticket prices.

The at times tense and heated negotiations continued throughout the week's work programme, often in closed sessions of the UN body's Executive Committee.

Finally the ICAO President Dr Assad Kotaite instituted an infrequently-used mechanism, a special "Friends of the President" meeting Thursday October 7th at which the essentials of a deal were hammered out. There was then apparently much to-ing and fro-ing on the text to reflect this package which included a late addition from the US and its supporters to conduct "further studies".

The agreed Resolution says, as is often the case in the bewilderingly arcane language used by these bodies, that there will be more studies on greenhouse gas charges, that the existing 1996 Resolution on what are termed market-based options continues meantime and any action should be consistent with it and that there should be no unilateral implementation '....prior to the next Assembly at which this will again be considered and discussed'.

European Government sources have confirmed that this resolution does not constrain or commit the 25 EU members states to do nothing and that they will start to implement a policy development programme from a menu of taxes, charges and emissions trading schemes to be applied to all intra-EU flights probably starting 2008. Such a programme may also extend to the 41 ECAC member states across the wider European continent.

Brussels-based sources have also confirmed that any EU emissions trading scheme for air transport would include the 2.7 multiplier for C02 tonnage which reflects the other major atmospheric climate change impacts of air transport, namely NO2 exhaust pollution and condensation trail-induced cirrus cloud formations.

Jeff Gazzard, GreenSkiesAlliance co-ordinator said:

"We'd like to say a big thank you to all the European Government delegations who have seen off this US-inspired challenge to the right of individual countries to set their own environmental protection and taxation policies. The US move was a shameful anti-climate change action, an essentially anti-Kyoto Treaty piece of shadowy backroom shenanigans that we are delighted has failed."

Tim Johnson, Director of the London-based Aviation Environment Federation, who represented environmental NGO's at the ICAO Assembly last week, leading the International Coalition for Sustainable Aviation, said: "This was a very serious issue of both sovereignty and the application of the 'polluter pays' principle and has important ramifications for the Kyoto Treaty and all future attempts to reduce and control air transport's greenhouse gas emissions."

In the UK, Prime Minister Tony Blair pointed out in a highly important speech recently, devoted solely to the threat of climate change, that air transport emissions will reach 25% of the UK total by 2030. They will rise to 33% of the total by 2050. These same emissions are around 11% right now, the raw numbers showing an increase from 22 million tonnes of carbon to 43.5 emitted by UK domestic and international air transport activity during the first half of this century, based on UK air passengers rising from 180 million passengers today to 476 million by 2030.

Climate change emissions from aircraft are out of control and urgent action that makes economic and environmental sense is needed right now to limit and reduce this threat .

Chief UK Transport Minister, Alistair Darling, had this to say about the ICAO General Assembly outcome on Sunday 10th October in a statement that was strongly critical of the US stance:

"This was a very successful result in the face of a very difficult situation. The whole world has accepted that it is essential to address climate change impacts. Our core principles have been confirmed. Attempts to restrict freedom of action on emissions trading have been averted. The incorporation of aviation into the EU emissions trading scheme remains our priority which we will pursue urgently during our Presidency next year. The hostile position of many countries to the European position on aviation's greenhouse gases is puzzling. We must recognise the problem we face and take urgent action to tackle these emissions. We shall continue to make our case at every opportunity."

Jeff Gazzard, GreenSkiesAlliance co-ordinator commented:

"We now look forward to short term stabilisation targets and longer term reduction strategies that diminish the climate change impacts of air transport and an appropriate range of fiscal measures to achieve them. There is sadly still an obvious contradiction between what Alistair Darling says he wants to do to control the climate change impacts of flying and his own plans for unrestrained UK aviation related CO2 growth as the massive planned expansion of UK airports is rubber-stamped by his own Department! We will only support air transport's inclusion in the European Emissions Trading Scheme if it results in something substantially more than a cheap 'get out of jail' card, and isn't just a cynical manipulation to allow airlines to continue merrily polluting away. Whilst we are grateful for the tough position the UK took at ICAO, we fear that the UK is developing a contrived entry for airlines into the European ETS that will turn out to be disguised 'business as usual'. This will be totally unacceptable and is the next major skirmish in the battle to apply the 'polluter pays' principle to air transport, the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases!"

A row broke out yesterday between Britain's charter airlines and BAA over how the airports operator plans to fund a £4 billion runway project at Stansted.  

The UK's Charter Airline Group wrote to BAA chief executive Mike Clasper and the company's Stansted project manager Tim Hawkins declining to participate in its preparatory work for the runway. The group, which includes Britannia Airways, First Choice Airways, Monarch, MyTravel and Thomas Cook, said it would only respond when it "receives a detailed explanation of how a new runway will be funded".  

The letter, signed by Kevin Hatton, Britannia's managing director, refers to a request from Mr Hawkins for comments on BAA's "expenditure forecasts" associated with the runway. These show BAA plans to spend £105m over the next four years preparing the runway, including £61m of professional fees and £33m of "blight costs".  

Mr Hatton wrote: "Charter Airline Group members will not be in a position to meaningfully respond until we receive a detailed breakdown of both the projected source of funding for the Stansted expansion and your assumptions as to levels of Stansted airport charges for each year in the period 2005-16."  

The group said the runway should only go ahead if BAA can show Stansted's users are willing to pay for it and there will be no need "to resort to cross-subsidy from other airports". The charter airlines fear that, on a standalone basis, the costs "could only be met through massive charge increases".  

The charter airlines are the latest to challenge BAA on cross-subsidies. Big carriers at Heathrow, such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, have already said they would fight price rises at Britain's premier hub to fund a runway for competitors at Stansted.  

Meanwhile, Ryanair, which accounts for more than 60pc of Stansted's traffic, has said it would not pay higher charges for a "gold-plated" runway.  

The Civil Aviation Authority, the industry regulator, has said it expects BAA airport projects to be funded on a standalone basis unless it can provide "compelling reasons" why not. Mr Clasper said in March that if such reasons arose "it will be BAA's duty to argue the case".  

Few industry observers believe BAA can fund the Stansted runway without cross-subsidies. Last night a BAA spokesman said the company would seek planning permission for the runway in 2006. After this, "we will put the case to the regulator and the regulator will decide how Stansted should be funded".  

He pointed out that phase one of the project, lifting capacity to 50m passengers, would only cost £1.75 billion. A second phase, raising capacity to 80m passengers, would increase the costs to £4 billion.

IT HAS been a long wait since the Kyoto protocol was signed in the early hours of 11 December 1997. Next year, if Russia sticks to the commitment it made last week, the treaty will at last come into force. And that will allow the world to get on with what really matters: drawing up the successor to Kyoto. For if ardent greens and out-and-out sceptics can agree on anything, it is that Kyoto will not even come close to solving the problem of climate change.

It is, as the UN Environment Programme director Klaus Toepfer said in a statement last week, "only the first step in a long journey". The clock is ticking. Every year we are releasing almost 7 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere - carbon that had lain buried since the days of the dinosaurs.

It will remain in the atmosphere for around a century, raising the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and trapping more of the sun's heat. Before the industrial age, the CO2 level was steady at around 280 parts per million. When the Kyoto protocol was drawn up in 1997, the CO2 level had reached at 368 ppm. This year, it hit 379 ppm. Most predictions of soaring temperatures, floods, droughts, storms and rising sea levels are based on a concentration of 550 ppm. On current trends, this figure, is likely to be reached in the second half of this century. Even if levels rose no higher, this would just be the start.

Time lags in natural systems such as ice caps and ocean circulation mean that changes will continue for millennia after the CO2 level stabilises The bottom line is that only drastic cuts in global emissions of CO2, of two-thirds or more, can stop the concentration of the gas rising ever higher and stave off ever more severe climate change. The more quickly the world can make such cuts, the lower the level at which concentrations will eventually stabilise.

The Kyoto protocol, however, involves only very modest reductions of less than 5 per cent. The US does not support it, developing nations do not have to make any cuts and it expires in 2012. Perhaps most crucially, it does not provide a blueprint for where we want to end up and how we intend to get there.

But activation of the Kyoto protocol would still be highly significant, as it would free negotiators to begin to discuss what to do next. That process is set to begin formally next year, but is also likely to be the main talking point before then, at the next meeting of the protocol's signatories in Buenos Aires in December. Activation of the protocol would also increase pressure on the US to rejoin the process.

Climate scientists say politicians must move on from Kyoto-style piecemeal negotiations on individual national targets to a global plan to cap concentrations of critical greenhouse gases, especially CO2. Most would like to see CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere kept below 450 ppm, but many accept that 550 ppm is more realistic.

"I don't feel that we should be anywhere higher than 550 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere," David King, chief scientific adviser to the UK government, said in a speech earlier this year. This would still lead to substantial climate change, with the temperature rising by 2 to 5^oC and the sea level rising by 0.3 to 0.8 metres by 2100, and by 7 to 13 metres over the next millennium.

But a 550 ppm ceiling would stave off even more severe changes. It would also address the international commitment made at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 to prevent "dangerous" climate change.

The Bush administration says it stands by that agreement, even though it disowns the Kyoto protocol. The UK could help set the agenda. The prime minister, Tony Blair, has promised to make tackling climate change the centrepiece of his presidency of the G8 group of rich industrial nations in 2005. Though he is far from finalising his contribution, one option being discussed is to propose a ceiling on atmospheric CO2 that would set a firm and scientifically coherent benchmark to measure the success of future negotiations.

Agreeing on a CO2 ceiling would be the easy part. Any ceiling effectively puts an absolute limit on global emissions over the coming century, and the tricky part will be deciding who is entitled to make those emissions.

The article finishes by discussing how countries would react to emission ceilings and lists out all the measures necessary to keep down CO2 emissions to a level that would not lead to serious climate change by 2050.

OUR COMMENT: Tony Blair, please note, all sources of CO2 will have to be reduced.

Increasing numbers of homes may be at risk of flooding as a result of global climate change, Friends of the Earth said today. The warning comes as the Environment Agency publishes a comprehensive map of properties at risk from flooding showing that hundreds of thousands of homes in England and were under threat. [1]

In September the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said that "the 1.7m homes believed to be at risk from river or coastal flooding in England could see their market value drop by as much as 40". [2]

Friends of the Earth's climate campaigner Catherine Pearce said "Hundreds of thousands of homes in England and Wales are already at risk from flooding, and many more are under threat as a result of global warming. Urgent action is needed to radically reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases. If we fail to act millions of people in the UK and across the world may end up paying the price with their homes, lives and livelihoods".

[1] The EA says that 1.8million properties fall within the area with a one in a hundred chance each year of flooding from rivers, or one in two hundred chance of flooding from the sea.

[2] http://www.rics.org/Property/Residentialproperty/Residentialpropertymarket/precautions+against+flooding.htm

EU transport-commissioner designate Jacques Barrot has suggested that the bloc introduce a tax on aircraft fuel for internal flights. The Frenchman's remarks at a hearing before MEPs last week have put back on the EU agenda an idea rejected by the current European Commission five years ago.

"Would it not be possible to introduce a low rate of tax on intra-community flights which are not exposed to international competition?" Mr Barrot said. However, the tax could only be introduced "when fuel prices have settled down" and would have to take account of both competitive and environmental effects, he added.

Mr Barrot's comments revive the kerosene tax debate as governments meet in Montreal, Canada, to discuss international guidelines on using economic instruments to combat aviation's environmental effects. The EU is fighting US proposals to outlaw all instruments except emission trading.

Kerosene taxes were ruled out as a policy option by the Prodi commission in 1999. In a policy document it said different permutations of the tax would either hit domestic airlines' profits too hard or produce negligible environmental benefits.

"What [Mr Barrot is] saying is very encouraging," Jos Dings of campaign group Transport & Environment told Environment Daily on Monday. "It's finally a recognition of the arguments that many people wanting an economically and environmentally sound transport policy have been favouring."

Airline association AEA was also "encouraged" by Mr Barrot's hearing, but hedged on the kerosene tax. "The environmental objectives should be clearly set out and the possible economic impact identified," secretary-general Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus said.

Turning to other issues Mr Barrot said stricter measures were needed on ship source pollution, currently exempt from the EU's environmental liability directive: "The borderlines of civil and criminal responsibility are not that clear... we have to sort out the ethos of responsibility," he said.

Meanwhile energy commissioner-designate Lászlo Kóvacs put in a lacklustre first performance before MEPs on Thursday, several times admitting that he did not know enough about his portfolio. The Greens called his hearing "an offence to the parliament".

The Hungarian candidate commissioner expressed interest in a European green certificate trading scheme for companies investing in renewable energy. But he said it was not for the Commission to impose legally binding targets for renewable energy on member states. He made several comments supportive of nuclear power, drawing a welcome from European atomic industry association Foratom.

Signs of growing support in the European Commission for the introduction of a tax on jet fuel have alarmed the airline industry and could undermine efforts to bring aviation into the European Union's emissions trading scheme.

European carriers are concerned that a kerosene tax, suggested last week by Jacques Barrot, the incoming transport commissioner, would distort competition among international airlines and increase the industry's cost burden when it is already struggling to cope with the surge in oil prices.

Any move by Mr Barrot to seek to impose a jet fuel tax could threaten the UK-led initiative to use emissions trading rather than taxation to address the impact of aviation on climate change.

The US government is seeking at the meeting of International Civil Aviation Organisation in Montreal to block any global move to introduce a kerosene tax.

Tony Blair, the prime minister, said last month that bringing aviation into the next phase of the EU emissions trading scheme from 2008 would be "a big step in the right direction" and that the UK would "argue strongly for this" during its EU presidency next year.

Under the EU emissions trading scheme, due to start in January, power stations and large factories will have to match their carbon dioxide emissions with government-issued permits. Any companies exceeding these allowances will need to buy spare ones from companies that have cut emissions.

Andrew Sentance, British Airways chief economist, said Mr Barrot's move to raise the prospect of a kerosene tax was "a backward step. The most effective and efficient way to address the climate change impact of aviation is likely to be emissions trading".

Mr Barrot said last week that the absence of excise duties on kerosene was a problem given the environmental impact of aviation. Environmental groups claim the lack of a tax amounts to an effective subsidising of the airline industry.

The EU's industrial emission trading scheme will not help the bloc reduce greenhouse gases unless governments agree to emission reduction targets extending at least 15 years into the future, according to a consultancy report.

UK firm Enviros says that the generosity of national allocation plans (Naps) drafted by EU member states for the period 2005-7 means that the early market price of carbon in the trading scheme will peak at €5 per tonne.

This is unlikely to drive industry investment to drive down greenhouse gases. The consultancy forecasts that carbon dioxide emissions from participating industries could rise by 5-11% above 2000 levels by the end of the first trading period, ending 2007.

Enviros expects the number of allowances to be restricted in the second trading period, and carbon prices to rise as high as €50 per tonne. However, it doubts that "even this will provide the stimulus necessary" for firms to make the required investments.

What would make a difference, it concludes, is "clear and unchanging" longer-term emission targets. This would allow a stable forward market to exist, against which investments in low carbon technologies could be financed.

The European Union's next transport commissioner yesterday suggested imposing a jet fuel tax for flights within the EU, while the airline industry is already reeling from surging oil prices. Jacques Barrot, during his confirmation hearing before members of the European Parliament, said the tax exemption on jet fuel for intra-European flights distorted competition with other forms of transport that did not benefit similarly.

"When fuel prices have settled down, we will be able to look at the question of the tax exemption for aviation fuel", Mr Barrot said.

His comments echoed those of Stavros Bimas, who is set to handle environmental legislation when the new European Commission takes office in November.

The Greek commissioner told a separate parliamentary hearing earlier in the day that pushing through a jet fuel tax was a tall order, as it required convincing all members. But he said "governments are starting to go that way". He added "I hope we will be able to impose a tax because we have to internalise this external cost to the environment". The tax cannot be applied to international flights because such trips are exempt from fuel duty under international treaties.

Airlines claim that using taxation to curb aviation's environmental impact is a blunt instrument and are lobbying for the industry to be included in planned emissions trading schemes. Mr Barrot, who will be France's loan representative in the next commission, said his priority was to ensure that governments fell into line with existing EU transport rules, notably state aid legislation that permits only one government funded rescue. He said "I am not a commissioner who is going to vastly increase the amount of regulation and red tape. I am in favour of enforcement".

Tension is growing this week between Europe and the United States over how to control and reduce the impact of air transport pollution.

The row is set to escalate at the UN International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) general assembly in Montreal, with 188 member states considering its future policy proposal to allow countries to use a range of options to reduce the damaging effects of aircraft emissions. Fiscal measures including fuel taxes, a distance related emissions charge, emissions trading or a combination of all three are the ideas put forward.

But the US has organised 21 other countries to propose in a protest letter not to introduce distance related emissions charges at all and insisting that ACAO alone should set out the legal framework for any emissions trading scheme.

Jeff Gazzard, co-ordinator of GreenSkies Alliance, said: "The US clearly wants to browbeat ICAO member states into accepting a contrived low-ticket piece "get out of jail" card in the form of a flawed emissions trading scheme where participation is voluntary, permits to pollute cost a few cents and business carries on as usual". European states, led by the UK and Holland, were organising a tough response, he added.

OUR COMMENT: Let us hope that the UK is supporting and will support all these moves. No signs of this in reports from the Labour Party Conference!

Pat Dale

Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State, DEFRA and Alistair Darling, Secretary of State, DfT, today attended the Energy Saving Trust's and Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership's "Transport of the Future Green Vehicle Expo" at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton.

Margaret Beckett said, "We cannot underestimate the importance of the transport sector in the fight against climate change and in the battle for cleaner air. Road transport contributes around a quarter of the UK's total carbon emissions as well as 50% of the smog-forming pollutants linked to lung cancer and asthma and implicated in the premature deaths of up to 24,000 people a year in the UK.

"The Energy Saving Trust is delivering government-funded programmes that are directly stimulating the production - and encouraging the take-up - of the new, greener vehicles and fuels that are generating real carbon and pollution reductions."

OUR COMMENT: What about the Greener aircraft?

Pat Dale

Political unrest in Nigeria is worrying oil traders

World oil prices have continued to rise sharply, with US light crude breaking through the $50 a barrel mark.

US oil leapt to $50.35 a barrel in Asian trade, its highest level since the early 1980s, as concern grew about disruption to world supplies. Traders said fears about political unrest in Nigeria's oil producing region were putting pressure on prices. Other factors included the slow return of US output after Hurricane Ivan, low US stocks and fears about Iraqi supply.

'Major problem'

The cost of London-traded UK Brent crude was $45.93 at 0837 GMT, while the cost of US light, sweet crude fell back slightly to $50.23 as trading opened in Europe.

What the $50 barrel could mean to you
Petrol prices set to rise as oil companies' costs rise
Airfares rise as airlines feel the pinch
Lower profitability eats into company profits
Lower company profits could lead to restructuring and job losses
Higher oil prices boosts consumer goods prices, so you have less money in your pocket
Lower consumer spending can hit economic growth
Persistently high oil prices could lead to recession

Rising fuel costs could produce losses totalling as much as $4bn (£2.2bn) for airlines this year, the International Air Transport Association has warned.

It calculated that extra cost of jet fuel could add as much as $10bn to the global airline industry's bills and wipe out any gains from improving passenger numbers.

The airline industry has remained fragile since 11 September 2001, with several major US and European carriers - such as US Airways and Alitalia - struggling financially.

On stock markets, shares in airlines, car makers and shipping firms suffered, though shares in oil firms rose.

The report continues with an analysis of the situation in Nigeria, the limitations on the world's oil suppliers to increase their oil production and prophesies that prices are likely to remain high for the forseeable future.

OUR COMMENT: The list of disastrous economic consequences is very questionable. Is it such a gloomy future? If raised oil prices means that the industrialised world has to agree to conserve oil supplies, to burn less fossil fuels, and to substitute other non-polluting energy sources the serious (and expensive) dangers of climate change will recede. Recession is not inevitable. Jobs can be created in the renewables industries. Gas guzzling cars can be replaced by greener models - and the predicted (though possibly unrealistic) massive increase in air travel could be avoided.

Pat Dale

THOUSANDS of families are trapped in blighted homes after being excluded from a compensation scheme for a major new runway.

Stansted airport in Essex, which a decade ago was handling only a few flights a day, is due to grow to the same size as Heathrow by 2030.

More than 12,000 homes in the surrounding countryside have lost an average of £100,000 in value since the Government earmarked Stansted for the first full-length new runway in the South East for half a century.

BAA, the airport's owner, has published a compensation scheme for homeowners, but has drawn the boundary so tightly that only 500 properties qualify.

The boundary cuts villages such as Takeley and Sibleys Green in half, with people living on one side of the road able to recover the full loss in the value of their homes, while those on the other get nothing. The boundary surrounds the area within which residents would experience at least 66 decibels from up to 700 aircraft landing or taking off each day from the new runway.

The World Health Organisation estimates that communities begin to suffer significant annoyance when aircraft noise levels reach 51 decibels. But BAA refuses to consider assisting residents outside the boundary, even though they can prove from Land Registry figures that their homes have lost a third or more of their value.

In May last year, BAA estimated that it would pay up to £250 million to compensate those affected by the expansion of Stansted. Since then, the company has cut the costs of the project and now says it will pay only "tens of millions".

Many families have been unable to sell their homes despite knocking tens of thousands off the asking price. More than 60 people have viewed David and Anita Armitage's terraced cottage in Great Easton, just 200 yards from the boundary, since they put it up for sale a year ago. Not one offer has been made, despite the couple dropping the price by £40,000 to £185,000.

Mrs Armitage, 33, a teacher, has given up hope of ever being to sell. "The cottage was an ideal size when there was just two of us, but now we feel trapped. We need a family home and if we sell at too low a price we will never be able to afford one."

Roger and Gillian Coleby have lived in their five-bedroom home at Pledgdon Green for 40 years. Their four children have all left home and the couple, aged 72 and 68, are anxious to move somewhere more manageable.

They tried to sell their home in 2002 for £575,000, but potential buyers were put off by the speculation surrounding Stansted's development. They dropped the price to £495,000, but still received no offers.

Now they believe that they would struggle to sell for more than £400,000, despite seeing houses in nearby parts of Essex rise by a third in value since 2002.

Clare and David Vaux, from Church End, are desperate to move because they believe that their two-year-old son's autism will be worsened by pollution from the airport. Their home sits under the flight path of the existing runway and alongside the proposed new runway. They have received one offer for £100,000 less than the unblighted valuation of £550,000. Mrs Vaux said: "We can't afford to take such a loss because we need to pay for Samuel's speech therapy. I explained this to BAA, but they told me it was my tough luck."

Stop Stansted Expansion, the campaign group opposing the runway, claims that BAA is failing to comply with the requirement in last December's aviation White Paper to "address the problem of generalised blight resulting from the runway proposal".

The dispute boils down to the definition of "generalised blight". BAA argues that it has simply copied previous schemes, including the one for homeowners near the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

Terry Morgan, Stansted's managing director, said: "I am deeply sympathetic to these people and we know there are going to be anomalies, but the advice we have been given is that when you have set a boundary, you stick to it."

People living outside the boundary may be able to recover some of their losses under the Land Compensation Act, but they will not be able to apply until the new runway opens in 2012.

Peter Sanders, SSE's chairman, said: "The BAA scheme is a kick in the teeth for thousands of local families."

The decision of the Russian cabinet to forward the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change to the Russian Parliament (or Duma) for ratification will if the Duma moves to adopt "re-energize international cooperation on cutting greenhouse gas emissions", the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Convention said here today.

President Putins leadership in asking the Duma to support the Protocol sends an inspiring signal to the international community, said Executive Secretary Ms. Joke Waller-Hunter.

Russian ratification would ensure that the Protocol enters into force and launch an exciting new phase in the global campaign to reduce the risks of climate change. After a short celebration, we must all get down to the serious business of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, she said.

By giving industry, local authorities and consumers incentives to take action on climate change, Russia and the 29 other industrialized countries that have joined the Protocol will set themselves on a path to greater economic efficiency. Accelerating the development of the clean technologies that will dominate the global economy of the 21st century will earn them a competitive edge in global markets, she added.

The Protocol contains legally binding emissions targets for 36 industrialized countries. These countries are to reduce their collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases by at least 5% by 2008-2012, compared to 1990 levels. This first five-year target period is only a first step.

While developing countries do not now have specific emissions targets, they too are committed under the 1992 Climate Change Convention to taking measures to limit emissions; the Protocol will open up new avenues for assisting them to do so.

In addition to inspiring national action to cut emissions, the Protocols entry into force will strengthen international cooperation through the early start-up of:

* An international "emissions trading" regime enabling industrialized countries to buy and sell emissions credits amongst themselves; this market-based approach will improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of emissions cuts.

* The "clean development mechanism" (CDM), through which industrialized countries can promote sustainable development by financing emissions-reduction projects in developing countries in return for credit against their Kyoto targets.

* Cooperative projects under the system for joint implementation, whereby one developed country can finance emission reductions in another developed country.

* The Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund, established in 2001, which will assist developing countries in anticipating and protecting themselves against the negative effects of climate change.

To enter into force, the Protocol must be ratified by 55 Parties to the Convention, including developed countries whose combined 1990 emissions of carbon dioxide exceed 55% of that groups total. With the US (36%) not intending to ratify, the 55% threshold can only be met with the participation of Russia (17%). The Protocol will enter into force 90 days after Russia's instrument of ratification is received by the United Nations in New York.

In addition to setting targets, the Protocol encourages governments to cooperate with one another, improve energy efficiency, reform the energy and transportation sectors, promote renewable forms of energy, phase out inappropriate fiscal measures and market imperfections, limit methane emissions from waste management and energy systems, and manage carbon sinks such as forest, croplands and grazing lands.

The individual Protocol targets are 8% for Switzerland, most Central and East European states, and the European Union; 6% by Canada, Hungary, Japan, and Poland. Russia, New Zealand, and Ukraine are to stabilize their emissions, while Norway may increase emissions by up to 1% and Iceland by up to 10%. The US and Australia, which initially received targets of a 7% cut and a 10% increase respectively, have both stated that they do not intend to ratify the Protocol.

Governments will discuss their efforts to achieve their Kyoto targets and other actions to address climate change at the next major conference in Buenos Aires from 6 - 17 December (the 10th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention, or COP 10). Talks on commitments for the post-2012 period are to start in 2005.

OUR COMMENT: Now the government can start pushing for aviation emissions to be included.

Pat Dale

Uttlesford District Council will undertake a thorough analysis of BAA's housing blight compensation scheme published last week.

Alan Dean, Leader of the Council has pledged that Uttlesford will stand up for the interests of residents by pressing for fair and equitable compensation.

Overall he is sceptical about the Home Owner Support Scheme. "The Council must demand fairness for residents against the blight caused by BAA because HOSS seems designed to protect more shareholders' pockets than residents' livelihoods. It looks like a mean deal based on a narrowly drawn line on a map which is based on a hypothetical noise contour on the dubious assumption that house price blight is purely a function of aircraft noise."

"I fear BAA is on track towards dividing the community between people who will get cash compensation and those who will be marooned in homes they can't sell or that won't fund equivalent new homes further from the airport."

The Council is planning to publish its critique of the HOSS in mid-October and will make representations to BAA and government ministers afterwards.

It is reported that BAA are now claiming that a survey of house agents in Essex has shown that the majority have not experienced any drop in value of the houses that are up for sale. Apparently they are also said to be expecting a two runway Stansted will create an expanded local economy which will attract more people in to the area all looking for houses.

No details of the survey have been provided other than percentages of agents responding though the actual questions asked are not detailed. It is therefore impossible to judge the validity of the claims. It is unlikely that house agents are going to present a dismal future for house sales as this would not attract customers. They are, of course, aware that an extra runway will bring more people into the area to work at the airport and since there is very low unemployment locally employees will either have to travel in or find somewhere to live. Traffic congestion and urbanisation are then inevitable. Living in the area will cease to be attractive. Future house prices are again likely to fall.

OUR COMMENT: Official figures are available which do show a fall in prices. If BAA wish to challenge them they must produce reliable statistics from a published investigation.

The Managing Director of Stansted Airport needs to check his facts if he thinks that blight from BAA's airport expansion proposals has not already affected local house prices (Airport to consult on noise compensation, EADT 22 September). Land Registry figures demonstrate conclusively that over the last two years generalised blight has already had a severe impact on some 12,000 homes around the airport simply because of the threat of expansion - and that's before any planning application for expansion has even been submitted.

Nor is it solely the issue of noise which contributes to the problem as he seems to claim, conveniently ignoring the fact that property blight is far more complex than that.

It is clear that BAA is shirking its duty to the community at large as well as failing to respond properly to the obligation placed on the company in the Government's White Paper to bring forward a scheme to address the problem of generalised blight. Stop Stansted Expansion will now be seeking an urgent meeting with the Department for Transport to discuss the inadequacy of BAA's proposals and will continue to press for a full and proper scheme to be introduced to tackle the very real problem which local people are suffering because of BAA.

Peter Sanders, Chairman, Stop Stansted Expansion

Noise pollution at Belgium's main airport has returned to the news, with courier firm DHL threatening to shift its headquarters from Brussels unless it is allowed to increase night flights. Federal and regional government bodies are at loggerheads over the issue.

The current ceiling on night flights at Zaventem airport is 25,000, of which DHL uses more than half. Last week, Belgium's federal government proposed to accede to the firm's demand for an increase in the ceiling to 28,000 flights. But the Brussels regional government refused to accept the change.

Residents and environmentalists have been enraged by the plan. A coalition of Belgian environmental NGOs is claiming that the proposed flights increase would breach the EU's noise directive, as well as national law.

DHL says the extension would mean 2,000 new jobs. And with Brussels university ULB estimating that at least 13,000 jobs would go if DHL left, airport workers are threatening strike action unless the flight cap is lifted.

DHL also threatened to pull out of Zaventem four years ago when Belgium's then transport minister proposed drastically cutting night flights, before being overruled by the prime minister .

The popularity of cut-price airlines and the Eurostar rail service to the continent is threatening to sink the ferry industry where 1,200 job losses were announced yesterday. P&O Ferries, the tiny rump of what was once a mighty ship-owning group, is to cut nearly 20% of its workforce, sell one third of its vessels and reduce its ferry services from 11 to 7. The report goes on to quote from the chairman of the company Lord Sterling and to report that the company has been hammered by competition from no-frills air services to Paris, Brussels and other continental destinations but also from the rail link under the channel.

OUR COMMENT: What is aviation's gain is sea transport's loss. No gain to the overall economy as is so frequently claimed, in fact an overall loss. We must remember that aviation benefits from cheap fuel and environmental costs as yet unpaid for. It should be obvious that a policy of expansion will continue the trend. Is this in the interests of a balanced economy, or sustainable transport choices?

BAA have recently published the general results and conclusions of their consultation exercise on an interim voluntary householders' compensation scheme for the financial blight affecting houses in the region of Stansted since the announcements in the Aviation White Paper. Details of the final scheme "HOSS" are provided and an application form for those who wish to apply.

You have probably already read SSE's critical comments on the scheme - if not, you will find them on this website. A better name for the scheme might be "HORS" - the "Home Owner Restricted Scheme".

In spite of the fact that the majority of those who responded did not consider that the basic qualification criteria should be the ownership of a house within the 66dBALeq contour, BAA have decided that this restriction will be the key to the scheme, plus a valuation that has fallen more than 15% since before the White Paper was published. The only concession is that there will be an assisted relocation scheme not only for those who have to move before any runway application is made but also for those who might wish to move.

No account has been taken of the evidence provided by SSE that house prices had fallen over a much wider area. BAA also regard noise exposure to over 66dBALeq as only "medium to high" annoyance. Does anyone working at BAA live within this area? Suggestions are made that there will be "further mitigation" such as sound proofing windows. These are weasel words - reliable noise predictions should assume that good operational practices are in place. Who wants to live indoors in the countryside with permanently closed windows? It must be remembered that the law requires adequate compensation though it cannot be claimed until after the event. This scheme is a holding exercise requested by the government, though it is essential for those already affected by the blight.

SSE has published a hurried and reactionary press release, a number of comments in which prompt a response:

* BAA Stansted has been consistent in saying that we believe that there could be medium to long term blight in the local area closest to the proposed new runway. That is why we have launched the Home Owner Support Scheme today. The Government has confirmed that HOSS is consistent with its policy on voluntary blight schemes. We have met our obligations under the terms of the White Paper - the Government has said so.

SSE's claim that over 12,000 homes have been blighted by plans for the new runway is alarmist. SSE's campaign has contributed to blight by talking down the local property market and thereby damaging the prospects of home-owners.

SSE now realises that it has misunderstood the nature of the scheme - it was only ever designed to help a specific group of people who are in the area closest to the site of the proposed new runway. And it does. SSE has raised expectations about the outcome of the consultation among local people across a wide area, and now seek to pass the blame for that back to BAA. We have never represented the scheme to be more than it actually is - SSE has, and it is they who will have to explain themselves.

* Local residents have not been left out in the cold as SSE claim. We make clear our intention to discuss a whole range of further issues and initiatives such as how we might reduce noise associated with the new runway, and mitigate the impact of it.

SSE is wrong to assume that property price movements in the area are entirely due to the airport. We all know that a number of factors affect each area, and nationally the market has been hit by higher interest rates. We remain confident about a buoyant local property market in the longer term, with the airport continuing to contribute significantly to the local and regional economy.

The 66 Leq boundary is attacked, but most of those who responded to our consultation wanted a clear boundary to the scheme in order to provide clarity and certainty. We have done what people asked us to do, and have based the boundary on those used for major projects at Central Railways and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

SSE says property blight is a complex issue but managed to define it very simply in its original submission to the consultation - in line with what this scheme has addressed. We have published the Government's comments on the scheme - twice (pages 2 and 9 of the booklet).

* We will not be publishing the results of any surveys we commissioned. We regularly ask the opinions of local people on a whole range of issues and feel under no obligation to fall into the trap SSE normally try to set, which is to distract the debate, accuse BAA of 'spin' and let the facts take a poor third place.

OUR COMMENT: It is quite extraordinary that BAA is now trying to blame SSE for the blight. BAA lobby the Government for years and finally get an opening to put forward a massive expansion plan for Stansted which will have a profound effect upon our area. The Land Registry statistics clearly show that local house prices have either (a) been reduced; (b) remained static or (c) at best increased at only about half the rate as for the rest of Essex.* BAA then offer compensation to less than 5% of the householders affected; SSE points this out; and BAA then blame SSE for the blight!

Under BAA's disgraceful proposed compensation scheme, even those few households who are eligible are destined to lose their eligibility if someone offers within 15% of the valuation. BAA will not make up this 15% shortfall. In addition, people are forced to "actively market" their house for a minimum of six consecutive months - increasing to 12 consecutive months for more expensive properties! And these are the "lucky" 5%! God knows what happens if someone needs to relocate quickly or if a sale falls through.

It's a disgraceful abrogation of the responsibility placed upon BAA by the Government in the Air Transport White Paper to bring forward a scheme to address the issue of generalised blight. But more than that; putting profit before standards of decency and fairness is not becoming of a major UK plc.

SSE has called upon BAA to publish the results of its MORI poll of local homeowners and also to publish the 'endorsement' which it claims to have for its scheme from the Department for Transport. Why does BAA refuse to publish these documents and even criticise SSE for making this request? What is BAA trying to hide?

SSE believes that publication of the MORI poll would show that BAA has not listened to the views expressed by local people and also believes that the BAA has seriously overstated the nature of the Department for Transport endorsement that it claims to have.

If BAA is confident of its position, why not publish? Why miss a unique opportunity to prove SSE wrong? This issue still has some way to run.

Brian Ross
SSE Executive Committee

* The Land Registry house price statistics, published quarterly, can be subdivided by Region (South East), County (Essex), District (Uttlesford) and by Postcode. They can also be examined for different types of houses, i.e. detached, semi-detached, terraced and flat/maisonette. Whether comparisons are made over a three-month, six-month, 12-month or two-year period, the evidence is conclusive that some 12,000 homes across the southern part of Uttlesford District, as well as some homes in the eastern part of East Herts District, have been blighted by BAA's proposals. The Land Registry data can be checked on www.landreg.gov.uk"

Saffron Walden MP, Sir Alan Haselhurst, expressed extreme disappointment and anger about the conclusions reached by Stansted Airport owners BAA when he saw the response to their consultation on the Home Owner Support Scheme.

"It is not what is in the scheme, but what is not" said Haselhurst. "I am pleased for the property owners who will be helped. I am concerned for those who are excluded. BAA has decided to stick with the 66 Leq noise contour. This leaves many people in the lurch - people who know their property has lost value. BAA has washed their hands of them. This is the company which boasts of its concerns for the community. This is the company that is prepared to donate money to schemes here and there. But when it comes to giving fair compensation to local people who are losing thousands on their blighted properties, we suddenly see the corporate smile turn into a snarl."

Local residents who own property in the area close to the site of the proposed second runway at Stansted airport, are to have the value of their homes and commercial property guaranteed for up to 15 years. The announcement of the scheme follows an extensive public consultation. BAA is promising to buy property at a market value index-linked from June 2002, which is the time before extra runway capacity was considered, to prevailing levels at the time of sale. The scheme will affect home owners within a defined boundary which represents a medium to high noise annoyance determined by the government as the extent of potential blight that might occur due to the operation of the new runway in 2030.

Sir Alan is not satisfied with BAA's agreement. "I have told the affected constituents that, if BAA did not offer a more generous scheme, I would take their case to the Secretary of State. And this I will do. BAA's Home Owner Support Scheme is based on one thing, and one thing alone: how to minimise the company's expenditure and ignore local protests. Well, local protests will continue, and I will be leading them."

BAA Stansted managing director, Terry Morgan, said: "The government asked us to address the question of generalised blight, and that is exactly what the Home Owner Suppot Scheme is all about. It is designed to target help at a specific group of people who own property in the area closest to the site of the proposed runway, and whose properties are li