Campaigners fail in High Court challenge to Bristol Airport expansion

A campaign group has lost on all six grounds in a High Court bid to prevent the expansion of Bristol Airport.

In Bristol Airport Action Network Co-Ordinating Committee v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities [2023] EWHC 171 Mr Justice Lane rejected the entire case brought by Bristol Airport Action Network Co-Ordinating Committee against the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Bristol Airport originally applied to North Somerset Council for outline planning permission to increase the airport’s capacity by some 20%, equivalent to two million passengers.

North Somerset refused the application and the airport appealed under section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. This was heard by a panel of three planning inspectors, who allowed the appeal.

Lane J said: “The broad thrust of the claimant's case was that [the airport’s] appeal should be dismissed because the expansion of Bristol Airport would have a serious and unacceptable effect on climate change.”

Five grounds concerned the panel's decision on emissions of gases from aircraft and the sixth the effect on a special area of conservation in which horseshoe bats roost and breed.

Lane J said: “So far as climate change is concerned, the general question underlying grounds 1 to 5 is whether and to what extent aviation emissions should play a role in deciding whether permission should be granted under the 1990 Act.”

He said the Climate Change Act 2008 placed a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure the net UK carbon account for 2050 was at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline amended in June 2019 to at least 100% below. Carbon budgets would then be set five yearly.

The objectors’ first ground was that the panel erred in law in its interpretation of certain development plan policies or failed to give adequate reasons for this.

Their second ground was that the panel erred in law in its interpretation of Beyond the Horizon - the Future of UK Aviation: Making Best - Use of Existing Runways and ground three that it erred in finding that it was required to ‘assume’ that the Secretary of State would comply with his legal duty under the Climate Change Act.

Ground 4 was that the panel erred in discounting the impact of the expansion of Bristol Airport on North Somerset’s local carbon budget and Ground 5 an alleged error of law in the panel's conclusion that the impact of non-CO2 emissions from aircraft could be excluded from the airports environmental impact assessment.

Lane J said: “On any fair and proper reading of [the decisions letter] the panel did not err in law, as alleged in Ground 1.

“It did not find that [the policies] had no purchase upon the issue of aviation emissions arising from the proposal. That is not a proper reading of the panel's conclusion that those policies did not ‘directly’ address such emissions.”

He rejected the second ground that the document on existing runways would only come into effect once the planning balance had been established.

“The panel gave a reason for rejecting this; namely that the approach was not supported by evidence of examples of the methodology being adopted elsewhere, and that it did not appear logical,” Lane J said.

“There is no justification for saying that this finding was not open to the panel.”

Ground three failed because the objectors had misread the decision letter and Ground 4 because “I am in no doubt that the panel did not act irrationally in giving the issue of local carbon budgets no weight, on the ground that such budgets have no basis either in law or in policy. They plainly have no basis in law.”

The final ground concerned the impact of non-CO2 emissions from aircraft, which objectors argued was of critical importance to determining the impact of the airport's expansion on climate change.

They said the panel should have followed the Government’s Greenhouse Gas Conversion Factors for Company Reporting.

Lane J said: “There is very far from being any scientific consensus that it is a relevant tool in determining non-CO2 emissions from aviation, other than in the context of company reporting.”

Turning to the ground concerning bats, Lane J said 3.7ha of agricultural land would be lost in the airport expansion together with 0.16ha of woodland both of which lay close to the North Somerset and Mendip Bats Special Area of Conservation.

Lane J said he agreed with the airport and the Secretary of State that nothing in the decisions letter “discloses that the panel misunderstood the relevant law or misapplied it.

“The panel's emphasis upon the uncontested ecological evidence from [the airport] puts it beyond doubt that the panel did not reach its decision on the basis that the land to be lost as a result of the proposals was outside the Special Area of Conservation, with a result that any ameliorative measure to be taken by [the airport] would necessarily be ‘mitigation’ as opposed to ‘compensation.

“Rather, the panel reached its decision by reference to the uncontested evidence, which was that the replacement land would be provided in advance, so as to avoid any impact on the Special Area of Conservation.”

Cornerstone Barristers said the claimant is considering an appeal to the Court of Appeal.

Mark Smulian