Brakes put on Leeds-Bradford expansion

After writing the last blog I had to hide myself in a darkened room to recover from a bought of despair brought on by wanton idiocy. There I was, knees hugged to chest, repeating "we're not all going to die because of flying pets" when a new email arrived in my inbox. Stupidity, it seems, is not widespread: councillors in Leeds have rejected plans to expand Leeds-Bradford airport because - shock horror - it would increase CO2 emissions.

The airport currently handles 3 million people, so its owners decided that it would be just perfect with another 2 million plonked on top. Unsurprisingly this would lump the local community with traffic jams, pollution and increase greenhouse gas emissions. Greenpeace reckon that the expanded airport would be emitting more than the whole of the city of Leeds.

Rejecting this expansion seems to have taken everyone by surprise, with the BBC running a piece about how it was all getting the go ahead, and much shocked whinging from the self-appointed guardians of progress: the business community. Witness prize buffoon Sandy Needham, chief executive of the Leeds Chamber of Pollution, bleating on about "cogs" and "private-public partnerships" like a lemon.

By the way, can we clear one thing up right now? The expansion is not "expected to create 3,000 jobs": modern terminals use far fewer staff per passenger than older ones (more computers and automation, you see) and low-cost airlines, like Flybe and BMI, use far fewer staff than 'flagship' carriers. The only people who actually think 3,000 jobs would be created are the pseudo-journalists who scribe for local papers (a thankless task consisting of selecting a company's press release and hitting Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V in quick succession).