CPRE believes that air travel has a role as part of an integrated transport system. As such, policies for its development should be governed by the same principles which currently apply to other modes of travel (such as road and rail) and which need to manage the demand for travel in relation to environmental constraints, measures such as:

• Addition of VAT on all transport transactions
  
  
• Increase in Air Passenger Duty
  
  
• Auctioning of slots at major airports
  
  
• Domestic measures to monitor and control the noise from aircraft
  
  
• Commitment to accelerate European agreements to bring forward
  
  
quieter aircraft

With the recent publication of the Government's Air Transport White Paper, as expected, the main focus of airport explansion has been in the south east with a new runway at Stansted to be operational by 2011 or 2012 and a third runway at Heathrow as long as legal air quality limits are not breached. If this is not possible, Gatwick will have the runway instead to be operational by 2020.

In Hampshire, Southampton Airport continues to expand at a fast rate and this trend is expected to carry on for some years to come. This expansion will be monitored very closely by CPRE Hampshire to ensure that there will be the matching infrastructure put in place to cope with the growing influx of air passengers to the area, as well as monitoring the environmental impact such as the further loss of the tranquility of the countryside and damaging climate change.

As stated by Transport 2000 recently and agreed by CPRE:

"The Government has failed to assess the impact of high-speed rail. 45% of the air trips currently made in the EuroControl countries are 500 kilometres or less in length. Many of these journeys could realistically be switched to an efficient and effective rail network. This is the direction both the Germans and the French are taking."

There is no doubt that the Government needs to invest considerably more than it is at present in an effective high-speed rail network which could result in significantly reducing the number of short-haul flights, although not without its own environmental problems, but to a much lesser degree!

November 2004