Plane Stupid Gloucestershire: Staverton airport expansion plans dropped
Plane Stupid campaigners joined forces with the Green Party and South West Air Action at the Gloucestershire County Council Scrutiny Committee meeting, succesfully forcing Cheltenham Council to abandon their expansion plans for Staverton / Gloucestershire airport.
The Council had tried to keep its plans secret, declaring that their review of the expansion proposal for Gloucestershire Airport closed to the press and public. The airport expansion proposals had been accepted by the Cheltenham Council Scrutiny committee, who along with Gloucester Council own the airport. Campaigners expexted another rubber stamping excercise. Not to be daunted, 20 protesters turned up determined to hear the debate - and made their contributions during an unprecedented question time.
After some deliberation, the council eventually agreed to make the debate public. Steve Jordan (Lib Dem) from Cheltenham who has lead the support for the airport, gave an embarrassingly bad presentation on why the airport should be allowed to expand: hardly surprising, with campaigners standing in front of him with a massive banner saying "Don't gamble with our future." After his presentation, campaigners also gave him a bag of 'common sense', (which contained an extract from the IPCC report) and publicly criticised him for his complete lack of understanding of the environmental implications of his proposals.
One of the conditions for allowing the campaigners to speak was that the council be allowed to deliberate aspects of the proposal in private and make their final decision. This they did - voting against supporting the airport financially, against making land available to the airport, and stated their concern that global warming had not been taken into account in the deliberations!
Final ratification of the decision not to back the airport is expected at the end of the week from Council's executive committee. A major success for campaigning, and an example for local groups around the country.
