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The Sustainable Development Policy Context
9. The UK White Paper "The Future of Air Transport" (December 2003), jointly published by the Scottish Executive and Department for Transport, gives a policy context to 2030 for the expansion of Edinburgh Airport in line with Government growth forecasts, and for new and improved surface access infrastructure and services. Air passenger forecasts are a matter for the UK Department for Transport, which has set out its approach in "The Future of Air Transport Progress Report" (December 2006). Forecasts include consideration of rising oil prices, assumptions of air passengers paying for their carbon costs phased over 10 years from 2010, increased disposable income, and aviation industry technical and operational change. The Department for Transport regularly review growth scenarios, but have not revised forecasts for individual airports.
10. The draft National Planning Framework for Scotland 2 (January 2008) underwrites the West Edinburgh Planning Framework process as a key priority for realising the potential of West Edinburgh as an internationally competitive business location.
11. The publication in December 2005 of the Scottish Executive Sustainable Development Strategy Choosing Our Future, and publication of the Scottish Executive Climate Change Programme in March 2006, have focused on creating increasing economic prosperity within sustainable environmental limits. The UK Government has also adopted similar policies. A key ambition is to reduce the levels of greenhouse gas emissions. 1 The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Development announced to the Scottish Parliament on 21 June 2007 that a 3% per annum target for reduction of all emissions was being set, amounting to an 80% cut by 2050.
12. The Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change was published in October 2006. The Stern Report is quite clear that the choice is not between reducing emissions and economic growth. It is possible to be green and to grow. The Report focuses on the feasibility and costs of stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere of 450-550 part per million CO2. This would require at least a 25% cut in emissions by 2050. In achieving this Stern acknowledges that deep cuts in transport sector emissions are likely to be more difficult in the short term, but will ultimately be needed. The priority is to bring down the cost of low carbon technologies so that they are competitive with fossil-fuel alternatives under a carbon-pricing policy regime.
13. Given Stern's acknowledgement that it will take 10 years or more to adapt transport technologies, it would seem that at least the next 10 years' growth of air passenger numbers at Edinburgh Airport are likely to materialise much as currently forecast. Carbon pricing in ticketing may by 2020 begin to have an affect on the forecasts, but by 2020, significant expansion of the Airport to the south of its current land holding will have become necessary.
14. The Eddington Report on Transport's Role in Sustaining the UK's Productivity and Competitiveness was published in December 2006. Recommendations from the Eddington Report as to alternative forecasting assumptions have been implemented by Department for Transport at a UK level, and result in a central case unconstrained 2030 air passenger forecast for UK of 490M and central case constrained 465M. These figures compare to 500M and 470M in the White Paper. The Eddington Report focuses on growing and congested urban areas and their catchments; the key inter-urban corridors that are showing signs of congestion and unreliability; and the key international gateways. It recommends that the Government should continue to deliver sustained investment targeted in those places. Step changes in connectivity have played a critical role in driving phases of particularly rapid economic growth. Domestic transport improvements in the UK can have important impacts by releasing constraints on the economy. The Report refers to attracting globally mobile activity to the UK by providing an attractive business environment and good quality of life. The strategic focus of transport policy can be guided by the survey evidence which suggests that both domestic and international transport links can be important to attracting, retaining and expanding such activity, and that there is much commonality between the transport requirements of domestic and global firms.
15. The Eddington Report supports the basic thrust of the West Edinburgh Planning Framework 2008. The focus on support for delivery of sustained investment targeted on key international gateways is welcome. The acknowledgement that step changes in connectivity play a critical role in driving phases of rapid economic growth, and the reference to attracting globally mobile activity by providing an attractive business environment and good quality of life both resonate well with what the West Edinburgh Planning Framework 2008 seeks to achieve.
16. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has published, in 2007, a number of reports on climate change. A report on the physical science basis analyses weather related evidence from around the globe and demonstrates that from pre-industrial times the atmospheric concentration of CO2 rose from about 280ppm to around 380ppm in 2005. This is largely caused by use of fossil-fuels. A report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability catalogues with high confidence the impacts on marine and terrestrial systems of global warming. Global impacts are overlaid with more variable regional impacts due to land use change and pollution. Many impacts can be avoided, reduced, or delayed by mitigation. A third report considers mitigation. It starts from growth, weighted by their global warming potential, of greenhouse gases by 70% from 1970 to 2004. Largest growth was in energy supply, closely followed by transport. Mitigation of transport relies on a mixture of fuel efficiencies, mode shift from road to rail, walking and cycling, and land use change.
17. Committed and future development also has environmental implications for air quality. Road traffic in narrow tenemental streets between the city centre and West Edinburgh create hotspots of poor air quality and these should not be allowed to extend more generally to West Edinburgh. Air quality in these hotspots breaches EU and national rules, and measures, particularly affecting road transport, will have to be taken to meet the relevant obligations. Forecast vehicle emissions from the transport modelling have been taken into account in the SEA carried out to inform the West Edinburgh Planning Framework 2008. The City of Edinburgh Council declared an Air Quality Management Area in Corstorphine on 31 December 2006.
18. In April 2006 the Scottish Executive published Scottish Planning Policy ( SPP) 21 Green Belts. Scottish Ministers consider that green belt policy should be used as a long term land use planning tool to provide clarity and certainty on where development will and will not take place. Green belt policies can help to achieve our vision to ensure Scotland has vibrant towns and cities, where change is managed effectively, and the best use is made of land. A green belt should be used to direct development to suitable locations, not to prevent development from happening in general. Green belt policy is not a designation to protect natural heritage or to safeguard land for major uses such as housing or airports. Other policies can overlap green belt designations. As a green belt is intended to achieve long-term certainty, it should have a time-frame of at least 20 years. Green belt master plans should allow for phased release of land for development to be planned in advance and be integrated into the fabric of the settlement and the surrounding landscape.
19. Existing settlements, major educational and research uses, major business and industrial operations and airports should be excluded from the green belt to allow for growth and change. Proposed uses not normally consistent with green belt designation may exceptionally be considered appropriate as a national priority if no other suitable site is available. The handling of green belt within West Edinburgh is considered in the context of these policies.
20. The City of Edinburgh Council has proposed a model for growth to 2040 which envisages direct expansion into mixed use development around nodes on high capacity public transport arteries with a strong emphasis on heavy rail and tram routes. While the strategy envisages new communities separated by green wedges, the strategy for West Edinburgh satisfies a number of the objectives set out, e.g. help achieve internationally competitive critical mass, make efficient use of existing urban infrastructure, provide critical mass to deliver new infrastructure, enable efficient public transport penetration, and respond to market signals. A candidate corridor in the City of Edinburgh Council document is set out as West Edinburgh/A8 Corridor/expanded Airport/Newbridge/Kirkliston for world class business/airport uses/international gateway.
21. In December 2006, Scotland's National Transport Strategy was published. The strategy is based around three key issues. The first is improved journey times and connections, making it quicker, easier and more reliable for passengers to travel between our towns and cities and across our global markets; the second is reduced emissions, making sure that Scotland takes a lead in the future of sustainable transport; and the third is improved quality, accessibility and affordability, ensuring everyone across Scotland has high quality public transport choices.
22. The strategy of constructing a rail station at Gogar with interchange to Edinburgh Tram, and improving the Edinburgh-Glasgow rail service including proposals for its electrification, connects West Edinburgh into the key issues of Scotland's National Transport Strategy. The Framework is concerned to make development dependent on sustainable transport modes (including walking and cycling as set out in SPP17 Planning for Transport) to reduce as much as possible the added emissions occasioned by development of the area.
23. Public transport infrastructure related to the Gogar rail station is funded within the current spending review period to 2012. Further infrastructure for which public sector funding is required will be considered within the Strategic Transport Projects Review for the period 2012-2022. A decision has also been made on the Forth Crossing Replacement Study to construct a cable-stayed bridge upstream of the Forth Road Bridge. This new crossing would not increase the roadspace available to single occupant cars across the estuary as a whole, but could provide multi-modal capacity for public transport and high occupancy vehicles.
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