Plane Stupid Scotland Scale Parliament To Challenge

PRESS RELEASE
14/04/08

FOR INTERVIEWS: Dan Glass 07717 811 747
GENERAL PRESS CONTACT: Richard Shore 07929 340 333

*Plane Stu­pid Scot­land Scale Par­lia­ment To Chal­lenge Back­door Air­port Expan­sion.* Activists vol­un­tar­i­ly walked off and arrest­ed at 2pm*

Plane Stu­pid Scot­land scaled the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment build­ing today, in an ear­ly morn­ing protest at Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment plans to impose mas­sive air­port expan­sion by the back door. At 2pm the pro­tes­tors vol­un­tary walked off the build­ing, were arrest­ed and tak­en to St.Leonards police sta­tion.

The sur­prise occu­pa­tion expos­es out­ra­geous Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­als to ban the pub­lic and MSPs from con­sul­ta­tions that sanc­tion major devel­op­ments, includ­ing air­port expan­sion. The action comes the day before con­sul­ta­tion on these Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work pro­pos­als clos­es (1). Two mem­bers of Plane Stu­pid Scot­land occu­pied the rooftops of the Par­lia­ment, unfurl­ing a mas­sive ban­ner say­ing, “Planestop­ping! Choose a future: No air­port expan­sion..”

Under Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work pro­pos­als, Min­is­ters will des­ig­nate a whole gen­er­a­tion of dirty devel­op­ment as ‘Nation­al Devel­op­ments’, which bypass pub­lic or par­lia­men­tary approval. Sub­se­quent plan­ning enquiries will be lim­it­ed to design issues (2). The mea­ger con­sul­ta­tion exer­cise on the pro­pos­als ends tomor­row (April 15) with leg­is­la­tion expect­ed in the autumn.

The NPF is being tar­get­ted for its sig­ni­cant – but stealthy — con­tri­bu­tion to UK-wide air­port expan­sion pro­grammes, and the mas­sive increase in car­bon emis­sions that air­port expan­sion will pro­duce.

Plane Stu­pid Scot­land spokesper­son Tilly Gif­ford said:

“The envi­ron­men­tal and demo­c­ra­t­ic cred­i­bil­i­ty of this Frame­work is zero. We are fac­ing a run­away cli­mate threat, but the Scot­tish Gov­ern­men­t’s reac­tion is to triple air traf­fic (3) and use the NPF to gag affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties. With­out reduc­ing avi­a­tion and emis­sions there will be no future to plan for..”

The pro­pos­als list Edin­burgh and Glas­gow air­port expan­sions as Nation­al Devel­op­ments, rein­forc­ing exist­ing plans to expand all Scot­tish air­ports by 2030.(4) As a blank cheque for mas­sive air­port expan­sion with no scruti­ny or account­abil­i­ty, the NPF is recipe for dis­as­ters like Heathrow in every major Scot­tish city.

The planned expan­sion, from 14 mil­lion to 50 mil­lion pas­sen­ger move­ments by 2030, would cause a mas­sive rise in cli­mate change emis­sions, con­firm­ing avi­a­tion’s posi­tion as the fastest grow­ing source of green­house-gas emis­sions in the UK (5). The pro­gram makes a mock­ery of the NPF’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty remit, and of Scot­land ‘s tar­get of reduc­ing emis­sions by 80% by 2050 (6)..

Spokesper­son Richard Shore added:

“Avi­a­tion is destroy­ing our future and retreat­ing into smoke-filled rooms is no solu­tion. You don’t get good plan­ning by gag­ging the peo­ple you’re plan­ning for. We need democ­ra­cy, and we need to face the fact that air traf­fic must shrink.”

Plane Stu­pid Scot­land is fed up with Gov­ern­ment inac­tion and white ele­phants in the face of an unprece­dent­ed cli­mate threat. Today’s action by Plane Stu­pid Scot­land is the start of con­cert­ed action against the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work, as part of the grow­ing move­ment of ordi­nary peo­ple (7) who have decid­ed we must act our­selves to tack­le cli­mate change.

ENDS

FOR INTERVIEWS ON THE GROUND: Dan Glass 07717 811 747
ON PARLIAMENT ROOF: 07824 658 092
GENERAL PRESS CONTACT: Richard Shore 07929 340 333

NOTES TO THE EDITOR

Plane Stu­pid Scot­land are call­ing for:

1) The Gov­ern­ment to end all sub­si­dies giv­en to the Scot­tish avi­a­tion indus­try
2) An urgent, tar­get­ed and pub­lic invest­ment strat­e­gy in the alter­na­tives to short-haul avi­a­tion
3) No more run­ways- and a strat­e­gy to dis­man­tle exist­ing ones.
4) Mobil­i­sa­tion of affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties to deter­mine their own lives against avi­a­tion expan­sion and run­away cli­mate change.
5) Research and invest­ment into gen­uine­ly sus­tain­able alter­na­tive employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for those employed in the avi­a­tion indus­try.

(1) & (2) Under the 2006 Plan­ning (etc.) Scot­land Act, Min­is­ters gained the pow­er to des­ig­nate ‘Nation­al Devel­op­ments’. This des­ig­na­tion reserves deci­sions on where, when and what to build for Min­is­ters alone, with no arrange­ments for scruti­ny or account­abil­i­ty. Once a ‘nation­al devel­op­ment’ is des­ig­nat­ed any sub­se­quent inquiry will not be allowed to con­sid­er the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion or need for the pro­pos­al.” (Scot­tish Envi­ron­ment LINK) The pro­posed Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work is a spa­tial plan which sets out a strat­e­gy for plan­ning in Scot­land , and iden­ti­fies the first set of Nation­al Devel­op­ments.
( http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/01/07093039/0 — NPF pro­pos­als)

To quote the excel­lent report by Scot­tish Envi­ron­ment LINK: “At no stage in the process will indi­vid­u­als or organ­i­sa­tions be able to lodge for­mal rep­re­sen­ta­tions or objec­tions… Any local lev­el con­sul­ta­tion, inquiry or deci­sion will be required to con­fine itself to design mat­ters such as the colour of chim­neys and the height of secu­ri­ty fences.”
( http://www.scotlink.org/pdf/NPFmap.pdf)

The first set of Nation­al Devel­op­ments out­lined in the pro­pos­als are as fol­lows:
# facil­i­ties and infra­struc­ture to sup­port the 2014 Glas­gow Com­mon­wealth Games
# grid rein­force­ments to sup­port renew­able ener­gy devel­op­ment
# a replace­ment Forth cross­ing
# enhance­ments to Edin­burgh Air­port
# enhance­ments to Glas­gow Air­port
# enhanced access to the Grange­mouth Freight Hub
# the Rosyth Inter­na­tion­al Con­tain­er Ter­mi­nal
# the Scapa Flow Con­tain­er Tran­ship­ment Facil­i­ty
# the Glas­gow Strate­gic Drainage Scheme
( http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2008/01/08095631)

(3) & (4) The UK and Scot­tish Gov­ern­ments plan a mas­sive tripling of air traf­fic. All Scot­tish air­ports face expan­sion by 2050. Pas­sen­ger move­ments are planned to grow from 14 mil­lion to 50 mil­lion pas­sen­gers by 2030..
(http://www.dft.gov.uk/about/strategy/whitepapers/air/chapter5scotland)

(5) Gov­ern­ment plans to expand avi­a­tion whilst reduc­ing oth­er emis­sions will result in air traf­fic tak­ing up one quar­ter of UK emis­sions by 2050. Cur­rent­ly avi­a­tion accounts for 13% of the UK ‘s cli­mate change impact.
( http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/environment/reports-05/rar05-05-vol01-03.htm#1)
(Tyn­dall Cen­tre for Cli­mate Change Research. Ander­son , Bows (2006) ‘Pol­i­cy Clash’, Trans­port Pol­i­cy. http://www.tyndall.ac.uk)

(6) Con­sul­ta­tion on the pro­pos­als for the Cli­mate Change Bill, with its tar­get of an 80% cut by 2050, end April 23. The pro­pos­als have already come in for wide­spread crit­i­cism for omit­ting avi­a­tion and ship­ping emis­sions, and for rely­ing sole­ly upon inef­fi­cient car­bon trad­ing mar­kets to cut emis­sions.
http://www.stopclimatechaosscotland.org

(7) The Decem­ber 2007 report by the cam­paign group HACAN revealed that only 18% of respon­dents sup­port expan­sion of UK air­ports. The report, by Wood­new­ton Asso­ciates for enough­se­nough, found there is no pub­lic appetite for air­port expan­sion. Only 18% sup­port it. Indeed, 57% of peo­ple sup­port “a pol­i­cy aimed at slow­ing down the growth in air trav­el”.
www.hacan.org.uk

More infor­ma­tion on the impact of avi­a­tion on cli­mate change can be found at:

www.planestupid.com

NOTES END

FOR INTERVIEWS ON THE GROUND: Dan Glass 07717 811 747

ON PARLIAMENT ROOF: 07824 658 092

GENERAL PRESS CONTACT: Richard Shore 07929 340 333