Scrapping of Leeds Bradford Airport terminal plan damages the environment, our economy and leaves Yorkshire as a transport backwater - Mark Casci

Then Northern Powerhouse Rail was mothballed, replaced with an watered down ersatz equivalency which we were due for anyway, with Bradford once again marginalised.

Now, in a final hammer blow, we learn that Leeds Bradford Airport's planned £150 plan to build a new more modern and environmentally sound terminal is to be scrapped.

Airport bosses specifically cited what it called "excessive delays and the decision to call in plans by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities".

Having endured a torrid two years owing to the pandemic blowing a hole in its operations, the airport and most likely its parent company AMP Capital decided that the vast amounts of capital it had invested in the scheme so far could not continue amid such uncertainty.

The planned new terminal would have been just what Yorkshire needed. It would replace the dilapidated 1960s bunker with a brand new facility in a much better suited location, and made a parkway rail station far more viable. It would have attracted more international carriers and gone so far to provide the region with the chance to become a truly international destination for business and leisure.

AMP was to fund the upgrade all on its own with no public money to be spent on the project. As a closed site the impact on traffic congestion would have been negligible. It would have been inevitable that it would have boosted Yorkshire's economy and created jobs when it needs it the most.

It was, to coin a phrase, a win win for all involved.

It was approved here in Yorkshire by members of Leeds City Council in February last year but has since then remained in stasis, initially in a drawer somewhere at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and then subjected to a needless, costly and gerrymandering enquiry which has yet to be even given the courtesy of a hearing date.

I was in the Churchill Rooms in Westminster this week at a business reception organised by the CBI and Barclays.

There, the airport’s CEO Vincent Hodder lambasted MPs and the Government regarding the delay.

He rightly pointed out that similar proposals for both Bristol and Stansted were waved through without interference and noted with considerable justification that the mood from Westminster to passengers in Yorkshire was very much that they should go to Manchester to travel rather than spend their money and leisure time at home.

It is impossible not to feel sympathy for this view and impossible to fault. The airport now goes the same way as HS2, subjected to interminable delays and the victim of misinformation and untruths about its impact.

Opposition to the new terminal was fierce, and if I may say bizarre. Despite there being no planned additional flights as a result of the upgrade ( disingenuously labelled 'an expansion' by opposers), the proposal became a referendum on air travel in general.

We were told that the new building, which would have been the most environmentally sound terminal in the UK, would be a cataclysm for the climate. Millions of extra passengers would be flying from the airport at all hours of the day, with residents surrounding it kept awake by the non-stop taking off and landing of aircraft.

These statements were and remain to this day to be utterly false.

The airport's planned increase in flights to seven million a year were signed off and agreed upon by planners more than a year before the new terminal was announced.

This is happening, regardless of the decision on the new terminal. All it means is that they will now take off and land at less appealing airport.

The argument also smacked of short-termism. Aviation is of course a highly polluting industry. No-one, least of all myself, disputes this.

But notions that aviation will not decarbonise in the very bear future are naïve in the extreme.

It will have to, owing to market forces and eventually political decree, much like the car industry. When it does, we will rue the day we did not give it the backing it deserved here in Yorkshire, as we continue to see millions of travellers head to Manchester and Heathrow to reach further afield destinations, spending their money outside Yorkshire in the process.

Let me be clear that I do not fault the airport's management for taking this decision. Faced with such needless and open-ended delays it could not continue with its plans as it seeks to rebuild.

Airport bosses will now instead turn its attention to developing the extension to the existing terminal, originally approved by Leeds City Council in 2019, to enable it to meet the rapidly increasing passenger demand as the aviation sector recovers from the pandemic.

It also remains committed to being carbon net zero by 2030. I salute and congratulate the leadership shown on this front. I know first hand how talented and experienced its management team is here in Yorkshire and its owners AMP have an outstanding track record internationally. It will do all it can for Yorkshire.

I similarly offer no animosity to those who opposed the airport terminal. While I disagree with the factual basis for their opposition I admire their strength of feeling. Their hearts were in the right place.

My opprobrium lies instead with Government who has, forgive the language, once again screwed Yorkshire over on transport.

Quite why it felt it necessary to call it in I do not know. Planners on Leeds City Council examined the proposal over the course of a mammoth nine hour meeting and voted it through. These are democratically elected local politicians who know the region intimately, certainly far better than faceless bureaucrats in Whitehall, who by the way have a raft of international airports to chose from in the South East.

I cannot help but point out similarly that upgrades to both Stansted and Bristol airports were waved through without interference. But hey, they are in the south so its OK I suppose.

If West Yorkshire is to be internationally competitive it needs to have international connectivity. Out of date rail and aviation infrastructure is key to achieving this. But once again Whitehall does not deem Yorkshire worthy of receiving it.

What is more galling is that, unlike HS2 and NPR, this would not have cost the taxpayer a penny.

The phrase 'thanks for nothing' has never seemed more appropriate.

My question at this juncture is this, how much longer can we put up with being treated this way. Large swathes of Yorkshire voted in the current Government yet it treats it with contempt.

Shame on them.