Newquay Airport: accidental environmentalists

It was all going so right for NQY (Newquay) Airport. Despite ongoing incompetence, disorganisation, cancellations, compensation, off-the-record admissions that the venture has no long term economic viability and British Airways banning surfboards the struggling airport was being kept afloat by massive injections of taxpayers' money. Then it all started to go wrong.

The MOD was due to hand it to Cornwall County Council in August, but the council wasn't ready. A second date was set for December 1st, but no one had got round to building a control tower. Now the Civil Aviation Authority has refused to grant an operating licence, so NQY has been forced to close for at least three weeks. Ryanair's so angry it's pulled all its flights until further notice.

This farce is the latest episode in the airport's troubled history. Last week Ryanair suspended winter flights to Alicante and Barcelona-Girona for "commercial reasons". The airport has been losing a million pounds a year, which the council and the airport had been trying to keep under wraps, until it leaked out via the Groundswell report and last year's rooftop protest by Rising Tide.

In July the South-West Regional Development Agency pulled its funding because "the relationship between high growth sectors in the region and air travel appears to be weak". After nearly two years of dithering, the County Council released its airport master plan, detailing a threefold expansion of passenger numbers between 2007 and 2030.

Considering the current fiasco and the fact that recent figures from DEFRA show carbon emissions from Cornwall are still on the rise (1.5% between 2005 and 2006) do we really need more and more people taking subsidised flights that even the uber-capitalists at the RDA can't find the economic arguments for? Let's hope this three week closure is just the beginning.