3rd LHR Runway - BAA & Government together tighter than a cock in an arse
SB
March 9, 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3512042.ece
Evidence fix led to third runway being approved
In the effort to push through the third runway, the government and
BAA
have bent the facts to fit the case
Marie Woolf and Jon Ungoed-Thomas
In early 2007 the prospect of a third runway at Heathrow seemed
doomed. Research commissioned by the government revealed that the
expansion would breach noise and pollution targets, making life even
more unpleasant for the long-suffering residents under the flight
paths.
The results were particularly depressing for David Gray, the senior
civil servant in the Department for Transport (DfT) who was charged
with showing how the runway could be built without any extra impact
on
the environment. However, he was then offered a lifeline.
On February 9 an e-mail appeared on Gray’s computer screen from BAA,
the airports operator, which had been quietly passed the confidential
findings by the DfT.
Headed “reforecast”, the e-mail suggested that the government dump
the
initial damaging findings and recalculate the environmental impact on
residents using new figures largely provided by BAA.
Documents seen by The Sunday Times show that over the next weeks and
months, senior executives from the airports operator were given
unrivalled access to Whitehall so they could select alternate input
data for the environmental predictions until they got the right
results.
These frantic efforts finally resulted in success. The joint
endeavours of the government and BAA claimed to prove that a new
airport the size of Gatwick could be bolted on to Heathrow without
any
adverse environmental impact.
The conclusion in the third runway consultation document published
last November was either an environmental miracle – or a mirage.
“These documents show it was quite clearly a fix,” said Justine
Greening, MP for Putney in southwest London and shadow Treasury
minister, who obtained the papers using freedom of information laws.
“BAA’s involvement was completely inappropriate and should now be
properly investigated.”
Greening will write this week to Ann Abraham, the parliamentary
ombudsman, calling for her to investigate the research used in the
consultations. London councils opposed to the runway also want an
inquiry into the scale of the “collusion and collaboration” between
the government and BAA.
The new disclosures will raise questions over the forthcoming
decision
on the third runway and the lobbying links between BAA and the
government. Tom Kelly, Tony Blair’s former Downing Street spokesman,
is now BAA’s director of public affairs; several senior Labour
figures
have lobbied or worked for the airports operator, which is now owned
by Ferrovial, the Spanish conglomerate.
The consultation process is confirmed to have been weakened by a
submission from the government’s own watchdog, the Environment
Agency.
It has unpicked the DfT document and concluded that it is not
“sufficiently robust” to support the construction of a third runway.
The new runway has been on the starting blocks for years. The
government first came out in favour of it in a 2003 white paper, but
insisted that strict environmental targets should be met. These
stated
that there should be no increase in aircraft noise – using 2002 as a
bench-mark – and that new European air quality limits on nitrogen
dioxide should not be breached.
The Project for the Sustainable Development of Heathrow – or “Project
Heathrow” – was created in the DfT to try to clear these hurdles.
Predictably, the initial results obtained by Gray showed that a third
runway would mean a lot more noise and extra pollution.
The results were unacceptable to BAA, which was determined to
maintain
its dominance of British airports. Minutes of a meeting held in
January 2007 between company executives and DfT officials show
discussions about a possible “ratcheted down” forecast on the
environmental impact. Gray subsequently sought advice from BAA on
what
data might be “stripped out to achieve compliance”.
Government meetings were held in BAA offices and DfT minutes written
up on the company’s headed notepaper. One disillusioned official who
was involved in Project Heathrow said: “It’s a classic case of
reverse
engineering. They knew exactly what results they wanted and fixed the
inputs to get there.”
The BAA e-mail to Gray in February came from a senior executive,
whose
name is blanked out in the documents, and outlined the measures
required to change the criteria for a “reforecast”.
One of the solutions was to change BAA’s predictions of the predicted
airline fleet at Heathrow in 2030. The new forecasts were filled up
with much quieter planes. It was still not enough, so BAA curbed the
number of flights used for researching the noise footprint until the
environmental target was met.
A Civil Aviation Authority document states: “The BAA forecast was
scaled back to such a point where the contour would meet the white
paper test.”
It was shaky science because BAA’s forecasts are unreliable. In the
mid1990s the airports operator had wrongly predicted the demise of
smaller aircraft; when lobbying for terminal 5 it had predicted
453,000 flights at Heathrow by 2013 – a figure that was reached in
July 2000.
However, fixing the noise footprint was relatively straightforward
compared with the air quality problems. There were predicted to be
“hot spots” around Heathrow if a third runway was built which would
breach European Union laws.
A BAA “surface access” report considered radical measures which could
help to bring down the forecasts – including a “shroud” over the M4
with “air scrubbing” devices, diverting cars around “air quality” hot
spots and tolls.
The problem was finally solved with a giant leap of faith. It was
confidently predicted that car engines would be so clean by 2030 that
there would, in fact, be no extra pollution.
DfT officials also helped to curb predictions about the extra carbon
emissions generated by the airport. They concluded that over a 60-
year
period the additional flights on the third runway would generate an
extra 181m tons of carbon dioxide. But they decided to exclude
international flight arrivals from the calculations, which was last
week described as “beyond ridiculous” by opponents to airport
expansion.
The documents show the DfT was even prepared to redraft the
consultation paper with additional comments included from BAA. The
company’s unprecedented control over the consultation document will
now put pressure on Ruth Kelly, the transport secretary, to
commission
an independent scientific report on the impact of the third runway.
It
also underlines the close relationship between BAA and Labour.
One of the main lobby groups campaigning for the third runway is
Future Heathrow whose campaign director is Lord Soley, a former
chairman of the parliamentary Labour party. The launch of the group
was attended by Alistair Darling, then transport secretary.
Labour’s small army of public relations experts and special advisers
regularly move between Whitehall and BAA. In addition to Kelly’s role
on BAA’s executive committee, Joe Irvin, now a special adviser at
Downing Street, was a former director of public affairs at BAA.
Another former director of public affairs at BAA was Stephen
Hardwick,
who was also a former policy adviser to John Prescott.
These links will come under new scrutiny as the key figures and
assumptions used in the third runway consultation document are
examined. The official response of the Environment Agency – passed
last week to The Sunday Times – warns that the potential risk to
public health has not been properly assessed.
Its response states: “We do not think the evidence presented is
sufficiently robust to conclude that the proposed Heathrow
development
will not infringe the [nitrogen dioxide] directive, bearing in mind
the uncertainties that need to be addressed.
“We do not contend that the evidence does not exist to support the
case for meeting the air quality requirements, but that, as presented
in this consultation, the case is not made.”
The agency adds that even if the EU directive is met, the
consultation
fails to consider the wider impact of other pollutants on public
health.
It suggests that it may be better to postpone expansion rather than
go
ahead. “There are arguments for postponing irreversible investment
decisions in the face of uncertainty,” the report says.
BAA last week denied collusion. It said the DfT was responsible for
the research although BAA had provided some of the original data. The
DfT – which is expected to announce its decision on the third runway
in the summer – said that BAA had been required to play a significant
role in the consultation papers because it had valuable data that
were
needed.
However, John Stewart, chairman of Hacan ClearSkies, the lobby group
opposed to Heathrow’s expansion, said: “The government is being told
by its own chief environmental advisers that the figures and
assumptions on which the consultation has been based are flawed,
misleading and contain huge holes.”