The Aviation White Paper represents the first rational attempt by Government to plan a strategic UK airports policy over what is, in Whitehall terms, an extraordinary long period of 30 years. Previous efforts to co-ordinate air services expansion, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, tended to be short-term fudges driven by political expediency. Alistair Darling should, at the very least, win credit for being brave enough and far-sighted enough to tackle difficult issues at a time when economic growth, technological advances and a desire to travel have increased demand for air services to record levels. Whatever Mr Darling said yesterday would have left some people feeling angry and betrayed. Had the Secretary of State for Transport turned his back on new runway development in the Midlands and the South-east, he would have heard howls of anguish from the business community. By accepting the need for limited expansion, he inevitably alienated the environ-mental lobby and thousands of families living close to the airports chosen for growth. Mr Darling, who received half a million responses to his aviation consultation paper, was to a large extent in a no-win situation - although his decision to rule out Rugby airport will be one of a few proposals in the White Paper to win universal acclaim. The Rugby plan - a £7 billion airport larger than Heathrow - never made sense, economically or environmentally. The proposal inflicted 17 months of anxiety on thousands of Warwickshire families, blighted properties and cast some doubt over the future of Birmingham International Airport. And for what reason? The obvious conclusion to draw is that the Rugby option had to be included to provide a legal safeguard for the Department for Transport. Its purpose, along with the 30 other Midlands sites examined and rejected, was to show that the DfT took seriously the possibility of building a new airport. This is important because the legal challenge to the expansion of BIA, and there is bound to be a legal challenge, could have been lodged on the basis that the Government only considered expanding existing airports, and did not examine the case for new-build. One of the words most favoured by Mr Darling yesterday was "stringent", which he repeated several times in the sense of insisting on tough environmental safeguards. The politician in Mr Darling was savvy enough to recognise that, despite the overwhelming economic case for the expansion of BIA, there are a great many potential Labour voters in constituencies to the east and southeast of Birmingham who almost certainly do not share the Government's enthusiasm for a second runway. There is little point in pretending, even with a new generation of quieter aircraft, that the new runway will have no impact on the lives of people living close to the flightpath. An additional 47,000 householders will be brought into the noise nuisance 57 decibel zone by 2020. In an attempt to address this, the Government is insisting the new runway be used by smaller, quieter aircraft and must be closed at night. The growth of Birmingham Airport, assuming the DfT's predictions are correct, will be substantial, rising from about eight million passenger movements per year now to 40 million by 2030. Mr Darling appeared to recognise the effect this will have on already-congested motorways, roads and railways by insisting that the airport operator work closely with the Strategic Rail Authority and Highways Agency to produce a robust strategy for improving surface access to BIA. The underlying message from the White Paper, as far as Birmingham and the West Midlands is concerned, is that the Government sees the growth of regional airports as a driver for economic development. Birmingham's ambitions to become a major European city attractive to international companies and a business tourism destination of choice depend on BIA's future growth accompanied by significant road and rail infrastructure improvements. At the moment less than half of the air passengers travelling to and from the Midlands use the region's airports. In the year 2000, 37 per cent of Midlanders who used aircraft flew from South-east airports. The opportunity for BIA to expand is self-evident, but airport managers should not underesti-mate the legal challenges that will now surely fly thick and fast as a result of the White Paper. | 
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