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Friends of the Earth have recently published research showing that Councils and businesses have gone 'plane crazy'

Construction has already started or approval given for eight UK airport expansions at Stansted, London city, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Edinburgh.

Meanwhile plans for expansion are being considered for Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, East Midlands, Teeside, Belfast City and Derry City.

On top of all of this attempts are being made to build four new airports on former RAF bases in Suffolk (Bentwaters), Hampshire (Farnborough), South Yorkshire (Finningley), and Kent (Manston).

The government has no up to date policy to guide its decisions on airport developments. 

The last white paper was published 14 years ago! 

In the absence of any guidance the government is falling back on the old 'predict and provide' philosophy that has been so spectacularly unsuccessful with road traffic.

Air traffic is growing so quickly because people are more affluent and because air travel doesn't pay its environmental and social costs. 

Airlines pay no tax on the fuel that they use.

Air freight traffic is growing faster than passenger traffic. The volume of air freight carried in 1997 represented a 12% increase over the previous year. 

The growth rate for freight is expected to remain higher than that for passenger traffic.

Air traffic poses a significant environmental problem with around 750 million tonnes of pollutants being emitted each year. 

Aviation is currently responsible for at least 3.5% of global warming and future growth scenarios suggest that this could rise to 15% by 2050. 

This at a time when Western governments, including the UK have signed up to the Kyoto Treaty, under which they have agreed to make substantial cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases

The Manston Airport Group are fighting to ensure that the development of Manston is environmentally compatible with the communities living around the airfield.