Put Leeds Bradford Airport expansion plan in this context – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Angus Skinner, Bramhope, Leeds.

LAST year just four million passengers used Leeds Bradford Airport, making it one of the smallest airports serving a large UK conurbation.

Manchester Airport handled 29 million passengers, making it the busiest outside of London. So what is going on here? Is LBA so small because people in its catchment area fly significantly less than people in Manchester and the rest of the UK?

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Or is the truth that we take the same amount of flights, but travel across the M62 and use Manchester Airport instead (perhaps because the facilities at LBA are somewhat limited)?

Plans to expand Leeds Bradford Airport continue to divide political and public opinion.Plans to expand Leeds Bradford Airport continue to divide political and public opinion.
Plans to expand Leeds Bradford Airport continue to divide political and public opinion.

It seems the most crucial and obvious question in the whole debate about plans to improve LBA’s facilities. Will they actually lead to an increase the overall numbers of people flying, as opponents claim?

Or is the airport CEO correct when he says people will still travel – whether or not he builds the new terminal?

What alarmed me from watching councillors in Leeds debate the issue is that no one seems to have the faintest idea.

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It’s not acceptable that plans like these, with regional implications, are debated without any assessment of the wider impacts of approving or rejecting them. Planning officers should remedy this urgently.

An artist's impression of the proposed new terminal at Leeds Bradford Airport.An artist's impression of the proposed new terminal at Leeds Bradford Airport.
An artist's impression of the proposed new terminal at Leeds Bradford Airport.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson

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