11/03/2012 Sunday Politics South East

And in the South East: As expansion plans for Lydd Airport

prepare for take-off, what will be the environmental cost of the

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1806 seconds

$NEWLINE I'm Natalie Graham and this is the Sunday Politics in the

South East. Coming up in the next 20 minutes:

Commercial saviours or High Street slayers? We find out what the

highest planned growth of supermarkets in England will mean

for the region. Joining me in the studio today is

the all female team of Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton

Pavilion and Tracey Crouch, Conservative MP for Chatham and

Aylesford. I want to stop with a subject close to both your hearts,

the community worker done by football clubs. This week Brighton

and Hove Albion has been honoured in Parliament for its charity work

with the unemployed. It also helps with education, health and crime

initiatives. No-one would argue they're not doing good work, but

how much should we allow organisations like football clubs

to take over these areas of our lives? Tracey, it's Big Society,

just what David Cameron wants. Football is one of the most popular

sports in our communities. They're often heavily involved in their

local communities and it is great to see what Brighton and other

clubs are doing to support all aspects of society. What Brighton

has done is fantastic to reach out to have more disadvantaged

communities. It is really important to get as many in people -- many

people involved as possible. Your club Spurs interested in doing the

same. Spurs already do quite a lot so they are pioneers, but they have

a lot more money than the other football clubs. He was supportive

of the work done in your constituency, Caroline. I am hugely

proud of our community on behalf of the football club. Football can

reach parts of society that perhaps more traditional methods cannot. If

you're dealing with issues like men's help, you can get a message

across that would be holler in other ways. They have done

brilliant work recently with the unemployed, reaching out to the 60

local businesses across Brighton and Hove. Very quickly, any

concerns that they are doing the work on behalf of the public

sector? What they need to do is extra on top of what the government

and the public sector provide. That is what they are doing, showing

that there is a real addition and at tea they can bring to the table.

We should be celebrating that. Thank you very much.

It's bang in the middle of an internationally significant

conservation area, but at the moment Lydd Airport doesn't have a

huge impact on its surroundings: it's quiet and only carries 500

passengers a year. That could all change though, if the government

allows it to expand - Lydd's owner has big plans to become a major

aviation gateway which can carry two million passengers a year.

Those in favour say those plans will bring economic hope to a

desperately poor area, but opponents say it will harm a unique

landscape. We're told air traffic will rise massively in the South

East in the coming years so can we afford to put the environment first

in this instance? Helen Drew Lydd Airport by the South Kent

coast. The number of passengers using it has fallen to around 1,000

a year, but there are plans to expand it despite strong opposition.

When we went to visit it this week, the airport was emptier than usual.

There was a deserted check-in and But one plane took to the skies and

it was ours. The pilot let me take the controls and we looked over the

area. The airport has one of runway which

is mainly for private use. There are plans to extend it by around

300 metres to accommodate larger commercial jets flying to various

European destinations. It expanded, the airport could see

half a million people a year going through its doors, and those in

favour say this would provide a crucial boost to the local economy.

The area around his more deprived than the southeast average. Will

expansion come at a price? This is the first site in the UK off Harron.

The airport has to take public safety seriously and so their

management of bird risk is highly important. This will involve a

number of techniques, like physically scaring the birds to

keep them away, which could have a negative impact on bird life in the

area. The environmental objections are

not the only one against expansion. In the structure is also an issue.

London Ashford airport is the official name and there is a high-

speed train going from St Pancras to Ashford in 38 minutes, but it

takes that long to drive the 60 miles along country lanes. We took

shelter from the rain to hear some of the concerns. You look at any

other airport in the area, there are dual-carriageway is in front of

the door, they're not rail stations, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, all of

them have the same thing in common: The big load running up to it and

rail so they can get passengers in. The only infrastructure proposal

that they have associated with Lydd Airport is always more roundabout

about 50 metres down the road. They are not talking about putting in

any job carriageways. To call it London as but airport is one of the

greatest comedies of our time. -- London Ashford.

The number of journeys to airports is predicted to double. The south-

east is expected to take most of that even though the government has

ruled out expansion account -- at Gatwick until 2019 and a third

runway at Heathrow. Extra capacity needs to come from somewhere, but

one local says it does not have to be from here. This is a ludicrous

proposition, a ludicrous a location for a regional airport, within

three miles of a power station, within two miles of a major

military base. We have a regional airport which is massively under

utilised so what is the point, when you already have an existing

airport in the area? The local authority support the expansion. Be

granted initial approval even though its own plan an officer

recommended refusal. -- a planning officer. An official recommendation

will be made this month to the government about whether to back

the development. But are such plans flying in the face of accessibility

concerns and the environmental importance of a unique and

protected area? Helen Drew reporting. Joining me

from our Dover studio is the Chief Executive of the Kent Channel

Chamber of Commerce Peter Hobbs. Why it will passengers come to Lydd

Airport and use the facilities? has been an airport for well over

50 years so it is already on the map. We are not creating anything

new. It is accessible. I listened with interest the comments made by

your viewers and clearly, with the high-speed rail we have now got

good access to London, and of course it is a good road journey,

although there are new -- no job carriageways. It is 30 minutes by

train to London ash -- London Ashford. It is not ideal, is it?

That is an exaggeration. The point is that Bromley is fairly isolated

as a rural community and clearly, there are no immediate development

plans for increased road capacity. But it is a chicken and egg

situation. If the airport expands, it we can therefore put a sound

case for better roads, better infrastructure to be produced.

Surely that should be part of the initial application? Ideally we

would put this question to the council but they were unable to

provide us with a guest. Why have they not put in a road or railway

as part of the plans? That is what you get with other airports.

have to understand that this expansion plan is not immediate. We

will not see 5 billion passengers appear from nowhere. It is a

gradual expansion planned over a number of years. But you have got

500 passengers a year at the moment! The owner wants a two

million. 5 million has never been mentioned before, but to get any

expansion, you need the infrastructure. If you are going to

benefit economic Klee, you need to do it properly. Of course you do. -

- benefit economic plea. The airport has done their research,

they have made good investments in the airport infrastructure, they

are prepared to put a new terminal building in, prepared to spend

money. Why do we asked them to build a dual carriageway? That is

not the old -- the role of the airport, it is the role of the

public authorities to improve the road infrastructure to meet the

need. Another question I would like to put to you about the range of

flights they are proposing, they are saying 1,000 nautical miles. We

estimate that will get you to Barcelona, but not to Malaga.

Commercially, is that the right way to go? I am not an airline expert.

To be frank, there does seem to be a great demand for more regional

airport capacity in this country. We have just seen last week,

Southend Airport announce expansion plans. Ironically yesterday, we

heard that Manston airport is likely to be sold because there is

a need for more infrastructure investment there. What I can say,

and certainly the support I have given of the last five years, is

that the current owners at Lydd Airport have made an investment.

They are committed to a commercial expansion over five or six years.

We will have to leave it there. Please stay there for us.

You know the area well and you want to see this go-ahead. Are you not

concern that the infrastructure is not their? I grew up close to live

and I think the proposals for expansion are some think that could

bring a huge benefit to the area. I hear what you are saying about the

infrastructure, but we are talking about one flight per hour. Any kind

of consideration that this is going to clock up all the surrounding

roads... I think it will provide much-needed jobs in a -- an area

that is particularly employment poor at the moment. This

regeneration could bring huge benefits to the local area.

Caroline, Green Party MP, I am assuming that you're not too

enthusiastic about this? Way or not, no. There are the obvious

environmental concerns, be pollution, the climate change

arguments. It will be in the middle of a protected area for birds and

biodiversity. There is also an economic argument as well. When you

consider that aviation nationally is subsidised to raise huge extent,

up to �11 billion, because aviation, when you fly it you're not paying

for the VAT on fuel, not paying for duty on fuel, that is a massive

subsidy equivalent to around �360 for every family in Britain. If you

want to have jobs, do not subsidise them by this. I was going to pick

up on the climate aspects because the airport has been in lit longer

than the RSPB century. It is a tiny airport and we are not talking

about building a new airport in the Thames Estuary. This is about a

relatively small expansion in comparison to... This area has a

four European designations protecting it. If we cannot pretend

that, but what can we protect? goes back to my earlier point, that

the airport was there before those environmental designations.

Actually, they have been sympathetically encouraged into the

area. A lot of the reconsideration of the plans had happened. Natural

England has dropped its objection to the expansion plans. 40,000

objections have been put in against these expansion plans. To suggest

that an airport catering for 500 passengers will cater for two

million it is a different ball game. I'm sorry, I will have to leave it

there. Thank you very much to our guests.

A quick way of creating jobs is by building a supermarket and more of

those are being developed in the South East than anywhere else in

England and Wales. It sounds like good news for anyone out of work -

Tesco said last week it's creating 20,000 new jobs across the country

and the Prime Minister welcomed the announcement, saying it would make

up for job losses in the public sector. Meanwhile plans to open new

supermarkets in Kent and Sussex aren't proving that popular - only

last week 1,00 people marched against a proposed Tesco Metro in

Herne. Tracey, is it always a good thing to open a new supermarket?

On the whole, yes. It doesn't surprise me that in the south-east,

we do have an expansion of supermarkets because we have a huge

growth in housing. People want to go to the big supermarkets, often

for convenience. I do have some sympathy for the local independent

traders and the impact on them. But I think that the supermarkets

should work with local producers to get as much local produce into our

local supermarket. I know you are concerned about independent traders

as well, Caroline. It becomes a vicious cycle because what the

supermarkets do it is stuck at the heart of the other shops on the

High Street. Date stop with selling food and then it will be flowers,

newspapers, books, so there is no life left for the other shops. It

is not surprising that you end up at the supermarket because there

are no other options. What about Tracey's idea of making

supermarkets stock local produce? It is a good compromise if you only

want one shop in your high street! If you look at somewhere like

Brighton, what makes it such a wonderful place and why it is

driving and other places are not is precisely because of its particular

offer around individual retailers. That is what people love about it.

If you basically have a complete modernisation of the same thing on

every store... That has not happened in Brighton yeah. Because

we had a protest and managed to stop quite a lot of them. If you

look -- are talking about local produce, let's have that, but they

are likely to have better relationships with shops than with

supermarkets. Supermarkets have regulations in place regarding the

size of their produce, but local suppliers simply cannot do that.

know you are supportive Param could --, Caroline, of this. It is

something that the government is looking at seriously. There has

been a suggestion that it may be included in the forthcoming Queen's

Speech. I think it is a good idea. There is a supermarket in my

constituency that sells apples from China. It doesn't make sense that

we in Kent are one of the largest producers of apples. I don't want

more of them, I want to seem local produce being sold in local

supermarkets. There should be some kind of distance or radius where we

can encourage that. Why local produce in local supermarkets, why

not in shops? We have to look at the reality, the fact is that

people are time poor and when they go out with their families on

Saturday afternoon, they want to go down the aisles as quickly as

possible. I don't think they do, they look miserable! Let us look at

the number of jobs that get lost because of the supermarkets.

makes me cross when a neck number of jobs is pronounced and they

never look at the number of jobs that will be squeezed out of the

economy as a result of them coming and nor the fact that the jobs are

part-time. They'll also low-paid. We have just got started! So we

David Cameron announced plans for a new stalking law after a campaign

from I woman in Cambridge world. -- Tunbridge Wells.

Tax cuts were called for for the South-east commuters could face

higher peak-time rail fares. The government thinks it will encourage

us to travel at quieter times. But there was one happy rail

passenger, as the Queen started her Diamond Jubilee talk. Nations do

have values and they should be proud of them and be willing to

express that prideful stop talking of pride, Brighton and Hove council

agreed that the pride parade can be held again this year after doubts

I think Charlie is bang on the money on tax cuts. It is an

important measure for people on low incomes and will deal -- to do a

great deal of good to take all these people out of the lower tax

thresholds. He is spot on. Will we get an announcement soon in the

budget? I hope we get it soon. Caroline, I imagine you support

that? I do support it, but I'm concerned about the number of

people who are struggling on benefits who are not necessarily in

work but are having a hard time. I wish the government would look at

that as well. Let's move on to Brighton pride. This year, it is

safe. At every year we have behind -- problems behind the scenes. In

needs sorting out, doesn't it? is only in the last year's where

financial difficulties have come to the fore. They have now got a way

forward in terms of having to charge. In makes a more stable into

the future. I am delighted that this time around, there is a

consortium that has come together to make sure that it will happen.

It is a fantastic moment of celebration for the City and makes

the important point that we need to do to tackle homophobia. He will be

there, what we wear? I wouldn't miss it, and you have to wait until

the day! We will find out when August comes.