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On Thurs Leeds Cllrs meet to decide whether to sanction expansion of Leeds Bradford Airport by 1.5 mil passengers/yr. There are major and dangerous flaws in the business case for expansion, as discussed in our ( @NEF) two reports. Why have council officers recommended approval? /1
The council officer's report states: “the expansion of LBA would have a substantial positive impact on the economies of Leeds and the wider Leeds City Region, create jobs and support the objectives set out in the Leeds Inclusive Growth Strategy”. Let's see... /2
No regional assessment was done. Manchester Airport was excluded. So we don't know if the benefits LBA is claiming (e.g. business productivity and tourism) are actually new. What proportion of passengers just switch Manchester airport for LBA? We don't know. /3
No national assessment was done. This is a major expansion, wouldn't it be good to know about its impacts on things like, for example, the domestic tourism industry? And how can we manage our national carbon emissions if we aren't measuring national carbon impacts? /4
No adjustment has been made for the impact of the pandemic on the business relationship with air travel. Isn't it likely that the widescale shift to online communication has reduced the relative benefit of business air travel? This isn't considered in the application. /5
While we're on the pandemic, what about jobs? After the last economic crisis there was a huge consolidation in aviation, and thereafter it produced far fewer jobs. Given massive redundancy programmes seen in last 12 months, surely this will happen again? Also not considered. /6
On jobs, there's also a major inconsistency in the airport's numbers. They say the number of jobs per passenger will increase after expansion. Does that make sense? Doesn't a bigger airport normally mean consolidation and 'returns to scale', hence fewer jobs per passenger?
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While we're on local economic issues - with the domestic leisure, high street retail, and recreation industries in crisis, why would we incentivise people to spend their money overseas? How many jobs will be lost locally to overseas travel? Also not considered. /8
In fact, the application and officer's report appear to disregard the negative economic impacts of increasing outbound tourism. This is despite the council's own reviewers saying the negative impact could cost £533m (NPV). And our modelling suggests it could be much higher. /9
The economic case for expansion is flawed. More problems are set out in NEF's two reports, but the basic issue is that irregularities in the applicant's submissions have not been adequately challenged and important 'sensitivity testing' has not been conducted. /10
These things we are asking for are basic and fundamental parts of the government guidance on business case appraisal. Sensitivity analysis, place-based and distributional analysis, all feature heavily in the Green Book and Transport Analysis Guidance. /11
To their credit, the council did get the economic report externally reviewed. But the quality of that review sadly fell well short. In some places NEF had to correct basic factual errors on the reviewer's part, and their reviewer made some truly bizarre claims /12
In one instance, NEF are accused of "selection bias" for asking for a national impact assessment to be conducted? 
in another place our request for a national study area is described as "at odds with the government’s levelling up agenda". Bizarre! /13
in another place our request for a national study area is described as "at odds with the government’s levelling up agenda". Bizarre! /13
To end: to stop the climate crisis, and escalating inequality, things have to change. We will need to break with a lot of economic orthodoxies and reform our appraisal and decision making systems. Leeds City Councillors have a chance to lead the way on Thursday /ends
