Countryside warning on airports

NEW airport plans threaten "vast and sprawling" damage to the countryside, rural campaigners warned today.

The Council for the Protection of Rural England published new data which, it claimed, underlined the threat to the environment from development sprawl if proposed airports were built.

With the Government examining the options for expansion, Andrew Critchell, the CPRE's aviation campaigner, said: "There has been much discussion about the environmental costs of individual new airports and runways. But when all this potential damage is totalled up the impact is vast."

The CPRE analysis underlines the all-encompassing nature of airport development, with its associated sprawl of new hotels, motorway widening schemes and housing.

Mr Critchell said: "Forty-four of England's best wildlife sites, seven Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, 10 square miles of Green Belt and 319 listed buildings are at risk of either directly disappearing under concrete, or being so close to new runways that they will suffer."

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