The expansion route from Nailsea to Bristol International Airport

NAILSEA Town Council is adding its voice to calls for improvement in the road network to Bristol International Airport.

Chairman Mary Ponsonsby said: “We are supportive of expansion plans but a little concerned about the lack of debate by North Somerset Council and the infrastructure.

“The roads leading to the airport are appalling and you only have to have an incident on the M5 and we have gridlock.”

In an assessment of the public transport links a report by Railfuture said British airports suffer a huge variation in the quality of their public transport links.

Bristol scored low and its bosses immediately responded by introducing a new fleet of buses between the city centre and the airport.

 But it isn’t enough to win the hearts and minds of neighbouring parish councils directly affected by the noise while others like Nailsea recognising the economic benefits of having an international airport on the doorstep are less critical.

Last month BIA unveiled its £150 million expansion plans.

And despite the current economic conditions it expects to be processing 10 million passengers per year by 2016, up from six million in 2008.

Chief executive Robert Sinclair and director of planning and environment Alan Davies outlined the airport's development proposals at a press conference in January. Itwill create 4,000 jobs by 2016 and bring £343 million into the region.

But it comes at the cost of an extra five to six flights per hour and an extra four million people per year trying to access the airport through congested North Somerset village roads.

North Somerset Council south area planning committee is due to discuss the plans on Wednesday, March 3, but the proposals are likely to have a long and arduous route through the planning process not least because some parish councils say the decision to expand should be taken at ministerial level.   

Winford Parish Council says in its draft parish plan: “Bristol International Airport lies outside our parish boundaries and within the neighbouring parish of Wrington. The rapid growth and expansion of the airport  during the past few years has had a huge impact on the peace of the local area, with the associated increase in noise, pollution and increased traffic flows particularly through Felton and Winford affecting local residents on a daily basis.”

But this month it decided to go one step further and ‘add its voice to requests by other local councils that the Secretary of State should call in BIA’s planning application and decide it himself. The proposals raise a number of serious issues such as the plans to use green belt land for car parking and the impact on the road network of millions more passengers. A number of local authorities such as Bristol and Bath are opposed to the plans as they stand. It was also decided to offer a financial contribution to work that Barrow Gurney’s council has commissioned on the traffic figures produced by the airport’.

Woodspring MP Liam Fox, who lives in Tickenham, has written to North Somerset Council leader Nigel Ashton, saying ‘As you know, I have never been against the expansion of Bristol Airport per se,  but I have maintained a strong and consistent position that there should be no airport development until the transport infrastructure issues have been sorted out’. 

Dr Fox adds in his letter: ‘There is already a considerable flow through our villages as traffic tries to make its way to the airport from the motorway network.  The problem peaks, of course, in Barrow Gurney but the effects are also felt from Tickenham to Winford and from Backwell to Yatton’. 

He makes the case that the existing airport passenger numbers alone warrant improvements to the road network.

He said in his letter: ‘The airport growth would see passenger numbers rise from around six to 10 million. Just how these extra passengers would reach the airport without exacerbating the problem is a mystery to me. 

“Improving the direct links from the centre of Bristol will deal with only a fraction of the problem as the permanently congested car parks are testament to the fact that people come from other routes.

“I understand that council officers feel that they will be forced by the current government ‘s legislation to accept the outline proposals for airport growth and that they do not believe any change in policy by a future government would come in time to stop expansion. 

“I understand that, in these circumstances, North Somerset Council would try to get as much money from the developers as possible to assist with transport upgrading. 

“I have a number of specific objections to this. I have always believed that transport improvements should be made before any expansion is allowed. 

“Otherwise, there will be a fear that the expansion may go ahead but financial pressures will result in transport improvements being delayed or abandoned. 

“Finding money from the developers for the South Bristol Link road is , I believe, a red herring.” 

And Dr Fox concludes: “This whole project is aspirational, expensive and uncertain, especially with the catastrophic economic position which the next government is likely to inherit…I am afraid I cannot support a position where Bristol Airport expansion is allowed before the increasingly unsatisfactory traffic problems are dealt with."

Nailsea people have been asked by district councillor Jeremy Blatchford on several occasions to comment but as long as the flight path isn't directly about their home no-one seems to care - unless you know better?

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