New airport plans 'are threat to rural life'

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 currently 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 impacts are vast."

The CPRE analysis underlines the allencompassing nature of airport development, with its associated sprawl of new hotels, car parks, warehouses, motorway widening schemes and housing.

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