Aviation

Lord Rotherwick Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Rotherwick]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the range of provisions and facilities available for general aviation.

[Lord Rotherwick]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who are to take part in this debate, and I declare that I am not only a private pilot but a director of the Light Aircraft Association, vice-president of the General Aviation Alliance, and president of the General Aviation Awareness Council, all of which are non-remunerated positions. In other words, I am deeply engaged with the lighter side of UK civil aviation and I am worried. Our airfields and smaller airports are threatened by the new national planning policy framework. Although there is clearly intent to protect them, I fear that protection will be ineffective without changes to the draft framework.

Britain has a great and historic civil aviation tradition, not just airliners, of which we have about 1,000 registered in the UK, but the more than 12,000 active general aviation—GA—aircraft. With the exception of airliners and the military, GA includes everything else. There are an estimated 4.6 million GA flights in the UK every year, more than twice that of airline and cargo flights. GA is important throughout Europe. In 2009, the European Parliament passed a resolution on an agenda for a sustainable future in general and business aviation. It is a well considered document based on discussion and agreement within the European GA community. The considerable arguments for the importance of GA to economic growth are well rehearsed in this resolution, for which the Aviation Minister has recently expressed her support. GA is a significant UK industry worth up to £3.7 billion annually and employs tens of thousands. It is a growth sector, including hundreds of small businesses. The Department for Transport is currently consulting on Developing a Sustainable Framework for UK Aviation, which, although mainly aimed at commercial air transport—CAT—will also have an impact on GA. A sustainable future for GA will see great improvements in the environmental impact as new, green fuels are developed and electric power becomes a reality for smaller aircraft.

The economic activity associated with GA, both at local and national level, directly and indirectly provides thousands of jobs, often in rural areas. British flight schools provide many of the trained pilots whom we need for our airlines. Aerial survey, photography, agricultural applications and pipeline patrols are just a few of the commercial GA operations carried out every day around the UK. Supporting businesses provide aircraft maintenance and many other services necessary to GA. Police, ambulance and search-and-rescue helicopters are based at GA airfields. Most of all, GA is about travel; across the UK and to neighbouring EU counties, GA gives us transport choices. All this activity depends upon the availability of a national network for GA. The UK has a network of several hundred such aviation sites. They range from thriving aviation centres with many associated businesses down to the sleepy grass landing strips deep in the countryside that my noble friend Lord Goschen flies from regularly.

The larger GA airfields are often small airports as well, shared with CAT. In such places GA and CAT support each other to provide a viable economic base, but this is not all about economics; there are real benefits to society and the community from the recreational opportunities GA provides, such as parachuting and gliding. This vital yet fragile GA infrastructure will be threatened by a national planning policy that does not specifically require local planning authorities to consider the national transportation issues for GA or recognise the economic importance of preserving a national GA network. LPAs that do not have up-to-date local plans may find that developers can assert a right to sustainable development unless the national framework provides otherwise. Airfields and small airports are often very desirable sites for developers, but our national interest requires an infrastructure to support aviation.

We have a perfect example before us. Plymouth airport is to close this year. Plymouth is an isolated city of nearly a quarter of a million people. The airport proprietor has announced its intention to close the airport and this has been permitted by the city council. This shows us what can happen when planners consider only local issues. Aviation facilities will be picked off one by one on the basis of localism, weak local plans and a presumption of sustainable development. Many of our GA airfields are on the edge of towns or cities, or identified as brownfield sites set within desirable country areas. What price could be put on an aerodrome such as Cambridge if it was available for housing development? How about Rochester, Leicester, Fairoaks, Redhill, White Waltham or Ipswich? Actually, Ipswich, recently a thriving airfield, has become a housing development.

Currently, several planning documents provide guidance for LPAs considering applications for airfield development. These include PPG13 for transport, and CAA policy documents concerning the safeguarding of aerodromes and wind turbine locations. I obtained assurances from the previous Government that airfields would not be treated as brownfield sites in their entirety. The Government's proposals will replace our extensive guidelines with a short document containing basic principles, so that we will no longer be able to rely on the documents and the protection that they offer.

It is clear that the authors of the NPPF recognised the problems this will cause for GA aircraft. The draft framework transport objectives includes a clause—paragraph 87—intended to provide protection for small airports and airfields by ensuring consideration of their wider economic and business roles, and of their support for the emergency services. It indicates that such considerations should be guided by the principles set out in the draft planning framework, the relevant national policy statements and the government framework for UK aviation. GA organisations have welcomed the intent of this section, but I am concerned that, despite its good intentions, it gives us no real protection.

The draft framework currently provides no relevant guiding principle. Also absent is an aviation national policy statement. No national guidance is available for LPAs considering airfields or airports. The government framework for UK aviation is in flux. It is currently in consultation as a scoping document that asks fundamental questions, most of them about CAT. It cannot help, either. Without a specific statement in the NPPF of the importance of airfields to our national transport network, the framework will not be fully effective in protecting them. Developers will be able to point to the lack of national policy guidance and take advantage of the situation, especially in the transitional period when local plans are weak or absent.

The solution is simple. All GA airfields and small airports should be afforded planning protection in the NPPF such that LPAs would be required to consider the national infrastructure when determining planning applications. This would also protect airfields in the absence of an adequate local plan.

Does the Minister agree that the NPPF must include more protections for the national GA infrastructure to guide consideration of planning applications involving airfields? I hope he will give us assurances and will actively support proposals so that appropriate planning protections for GA airfields are incorporated into the national planning framework.