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Barrow Gurney is a small town in Somerset, situated by the banks of a reservoir, and surrounded on all sides by open farmland. It has a traditional village hall, the ‘dirtiest hospital in the country’ prior to its abandonment in 2006, and traffic calming measures that would make a tank pause.

The town has been blighted by heavy congestion over the past few years, with regular travellers using Barrow Gurney’s roads as a shortcut to Bristol Airport. The town has the incredible misfortune to be stuck on the only major road that connects the A370 and the A38, with no other routes within 5 miles of the village green.

As the A38 leads directly to Bristol Airport, the Somerset hub has been much blamed for most – if not all – of Barrow Gurney’s traffic problems. Fortunately, a newly signed contract between the airport and local taxi firm, Checker Cars, could help alleviate rural congestion in a number of small towns and villages in the Bristol area.

Checker Cars will now be encouraged to avoid Barrow Gurney, wherever possible, or risk losing its exclusive contract with Bristol Airport. Drivers must also honour the town’s 20mph speed limit if no alternative routes can be found. The airport’s transport officer, Ian Hiles, hopes that Checker Cars can be instrumental in ‘improving’ local communities.

‘Fuel-efficient’ cars and buses will be added to Checker Cars’ ranks over the coming year, suggesting that Bristol Airport is trying to lose its reputation as an enemy to the rural environment. The airport was recently the target of a campaign by magazine, Beautiful Britain, which implied that an expansion of Bristol’s terminal was being undertaken without regard for public opinion.

The magazine sketched a giant runway in a field beside the M5 motorway. The words ‘Planning Approved’ were stamped across the middle, epitomising the public’s struggle against aggressive expansion.

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At first glance, Bristol and Heathrow airports might appear to have little in common, save for a few similar airlines and a bookstore or two, but these two hubs share a rather unpleasant accolade: they have both drawn criticism for their expansion plans, however successful they might be in the end.

Campaigners’ main concern is that public opinion is being ignored, especially with regard to the environmental impact of night flying, terminal upgrades, and runway extensions at Britain’s many airports. Birmingham, Manchester, and Edinburgh have also proposed or undertaken expansion projects in recent years, with little regard for the feelings of local residents.

Whilst Manchester’s decision to destroy two listed buildings and build a hangar on a newt colony might have given eco-warriors something new to complain about, there is no denying that aggressive expansion by UK airports is eroding the public’s confidence in both the government and the aviation industry.

So, when Bristol Airport’s expansion plans were given the green light by local councillors, despite months of aggressive lobbying by concerned residents, Beautiful Britain magazine commissioned an unusual piece of art, designed to draw attention to a perceived lack of consultation on major construction projects.

Painted in a field beside the M5 motorway, Beautiful Britain sketched the outline of a 70m runway. The words, ‘Planning Approved,’ are stamped across the middle. The magazine had previously questioned thousands of its readers, and discovered that 80% of respondents wanted more ‘red tape’ to prevent new runways from appearing overnight, much like Beautiful Britain's giant painting.

The mural was painted with biodegradable paint, naturally.

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According to the World Development Movement, a campaign group that seeks to eradicate world poverty, the volume of carbon dioxide produced by Bristol Airport in 2007 was equal to that produced by the entire nation of Malawi, Africa.

At the time, local councillors were unimpressed with the news, and Bristol Airport was forced to shelve its expansion plans for the next three years, until bosses found a way to deal with the smog that was clouding the terminal windows. The airport was finally granted a reprieve from its critics on the 10th March 2010, with a six-to-three vote in favour of the expansion.

Bristol councillors endured a three hour meeting on the 10th March, attended by more than one hundred people, both advocates and fierce opponents. The ultimate decision came as a blow for members of the Stop Bristol Airport Expansion group (SBAE), which had received over 1000 complaints about the expansion, and was hoping to block the plans forever.

The appropriate documents will now be passed to the local planning committee, the final page in Bristol’s great expansion odyssey. The airport hopes to boost passenger numbers to 10m people a year, but eco-warriors continue to fight for a cap at 8m. The SBAE website claims that any expansion at all will lead to a “wanton increase in greenhouse gas emissions.”

Airport bosses have countered the figures with some of their own: 3000 direct jobs and a £200m boost to the local economy. The expansion will include a new car park, modifications to the existing terminal, and a complete rebranding of the airport’s public image.

Bristol Airport has already dropped the word ‘international’ from its name, as the need to emphasise its global connections becomes less important.

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Bristol Airport has announced that the bus service linking the airport to the city centre is to undergo a £2 million makeover. The complete overhaul of the bus service will improve transport links and bring greater accessibility to and from the airport.

The Flyer route operates between the airport and the city centre. 12 new buses will be added to the service, at a cost of £180,000 each, replacing the current nine that are in operation. The first six new buses are going to arrive this spring, with the rest following in 2011.

Bristol Airport has been criticised in the past for not having a rail link like most other airports. It is hoped that the new bus service will go some way towards making up for this and will show that the airport is doing all it can to improve its public transport network.

One of the main improvements the new bus service will bring is that buses will be leaving from the airport once every 10 minutes at peak times rather than once every 15 minutes. To ensure that as many people as possible can take advantage of the buses, they will stop at important locations such as Bristol Temple Meads Station.

The bus service is operated by First, with whom the airport has just renewed its partnership.

The commercial manager at Bristol Airport, Tom Hack, said that over half a million passengers used the bus service last year, and that the new service “will ensure inbound visitors receive a good first impression, and will provide an even more attractive alternative to the car for local travellers.”

Pederson Airport Hotels is to build a new hotel at Bristol Airport, just 100m from the main terminal building. Costing £20m to complete, the hotel will incorporate meeting rooms, a bar and restaurant, and two hundred and fifty shiny new rooms.

Bristol is the largest international airport in the UK without a hotel to its name. Officials claim that the facility could generate twenty-five direct jobs at the airport, with tens more in the city centre.

An expansion of the airport’s terminal and improved transport links will also form part of the planning application, due to be submitted by April 2010. Officials hope to reduce the airport’s impact on the local environment by making it more convenient for flyers to leave their cars at home. On-site parking will also help to alleviate congestion in and around the airport site.

Bristol’s latest endeavour is designed to appeal to a particular audience – late and early arrivals too tired to stand up. Airline crew members will also spend time at the hotel during overnight stopovers.

Chief executive at Bristol, Robert Sinclair, was keen to boost the overall appeal of Bristol Airport. “The hotel will provide a much-needed service, for business passengers in particular, and will improve first impressions of the region for visitors.”

The hotel, which will be Pederson’s fourth in the Bristol area, will begin accepting bookings in 2012. A prominent service brand is expected to take over from the developer during the later stages of construction.

Despite the perceived benefits of an expansion to Bristol Airport, a number of local councils have objected to the scheme, claiming that the extra flights will cause significant damage to local eco-systems, and to the ears of nearby residents.

Bristol Airport has introduced automated security measures at its border controls, allowing passengers to scan their own passports, and helping police identify wanted crooks before they enter the country.

Costing £1.2bn to implement, the e-Border system scans the facial features of passengers, and then checks the data against their passport photo – however grim it may be.

The addition of fingerprint visas and ID cards, in tandem with e-Border, represents a major overhaul of airport security measures, the first of its kind in almost fifty years.

Bristol joins Stansted and Manchester airports as pioneers of self-scanning technology, but fingerprint visas have been a facet of airport terminals for a number of months. The UK Border Agency hopes that all UK sites will carry the technology before the end of the year.

UK border controls were tightened following the destruction of the World Trade Centre in September 2001 and the discovery of the transatlantic bomb plot five years later – an event that reached a crescendo at the beginning of the month.

Since then, passengers have had to endure lengthy queues, a ban on liquids, and gun-toting police officers stalking the terminals. All of that could change, however, if trials of a new liquid scanner prove successful.

The device, designed to detect flammable and explosive products, could save the Border Agency over £100m in extra surveillance systems. Used in conjunction with e-Border technology, UK airports could experience gentle security measures for the first time in a decade.

Critics have warned officials away from entrusting life and limb to robots and machines, but the ‘automatic airport’ is clearly a priority for the Border Agency.

The £150 million plans for the expansion of Bristol International Airport have not been backed by Bristol City Council. The Council, the original owners of the airport, have formally objected to North Somerset Council, the authority dealing with the planning application.

In a letter to the Head of Development Control at North Somerset on 18/08/09, Bristol City Council stated that their ‘position on the development proposals remained substantially unchanged’ from their original objections. These were raised after the publication of the Master Plan for the airport in 2006.

The plans will double the size of the terminal which was only opened in March 2000; there will be a five storey car park, a new runway apron and new passenger walkways. Passenger numbers are expected to rise from the current 6 million to 10 million by 2016 and to 12.5 million by 2030.

Bristol City Council recommends that the airport minimise the increase in noise the expansion will bring. It suggests that ‘the expansion is likely to work against the City Council’s aspirations for cleaner air in the city’. The Council is unclear how the proposal will reduce the airport’s target for carbon dioxide emissions but does back the increase in the Bristol Flyer coach service to Bristol.

The objection from Bristol City Council was submitted as part of the wider public consultation process which has now ended. The decision on the expansion plans will be taken by North Somerset Council at a date yet to be decided.

Another week sees another airport expansion causing headlines. With Heathrow, Stansted and Aberdeen all attracting controversy in the past few months, now it is the turn of Bristol Airport to face the wrath of the protestors.

The group in question is SBAE (Stop Bristol Airport Expansion), and it has recently picked up on a report by the Aviation Environment Federation entitled “Airport Jobs: False Hopes, Cruel Hoax”. In it, the claim is made that increasing airport sizes in the south west would only lead to more people choosing to travel and spend their money abroad. As a result, the area would actually lose jobs rather than gain them.

The report made reference to the tourism deficit of over £1 billion in the south west in 2005. This is the amount of money spent abroad by people flying from Bristol Airport, compared to the amount spent in the area by people flying in. The group stated that by 2030, this deficit would rise and lead to the loss of 64,000 jobs in the area.

Despite being described as “laughable” by Jamie Christon, the deputy managing director at Exeter International Airport, who said that skilled jobs and tourism would both benefit from expansions to airports in the region, the report has been taken up by the campaign group.

The proposals that the group is fighting against include the doubling of the terminal size, the increase in the number of aircraft stands by nine, extra walkways to the planes and a new hotel and car park.

In total, the cost of the plans comes to £150 million, and it is hoped that by 2016 passenger numbers will have risen from 6 million to 11 million a year with an extra 4,000 jobs created.

New plans to expand Bristol International Airport could create approximately 4,000 new jobs if approved by North Somerset Council. The decision will probably be announced by the end of May and opinion is currently split as to what the best outcome would be.

The firm in charge of the new plans to extend the terminal building at Bristol and introduce extra car parking space as well as brand new stands for aircraft believes that the boost to the local economy which could result from the plans would be significant.

The chief executive of Bristol International Airport, Robert Sinclair, mirrored the thoughts of the firm, stating that the expansion (which would see the airport capable of handling approximately ten million individuals, an increase of four million on the current figure) would help “attract tourists directly into the region”, which would undoubtedly help to support “the local economy”.

Although officials at Bristol have revealed that the environmental impact of the new plans would be managed carefully, several organisations have made their opposition to the scheme known. The Stop Bristol Airport Expansion group is one such example and a spokeswoman revealed that the proposed expansion “makes a mockery of the government’s green credentials as supposed leaders on climate change”.

Groups such as Stop Bristol Airport Expansion believe that the potential economic boost is negligible in importance when viewed in the light of the environmental impact. The news from airport officials that airlines would try to operate quieter planes after the expansion is unlikely to calm their fears.

Stop Bristol Airport Expansion, a campaign group actively opposed to the expansion of Bristol Airport, has spoken about its fears that a change in Government policy will prove detrimental to local businesses. The group’s anxiety has arisen as a result of carbon reduction targets announced by the Government. MPs recently voted in favour of an alteration to the Climate Change Bill. This amendment will see aviation emissions included in the carbon reduction targets for Britain.

Overall, the Government wishes to see emissions across the UK reduced by 80% by 2050. However, with the proposed expansion to Bristol Airport, other businesses will have to lower their emissions drastically in order to compensate for the extra impact on the environment caused by the growth.

Jeremy Birch, a spokesman for the Stop Bristol Airport Expansion campaign group, has commended the Government for including “the UK’s international aviation emissions in our new 80% target”. He stated recently that including emissions from every flight in the target creates “a level playing field between all industries”.

However, Birch continued to state that every industry must now take part in “delivering the cuts”. As such, according to the spokesman, Bristol Airport must not be allowed to expand. If expansions do occur as planned, there will be a subsequent “drain on the economy” as other industries struggle to meet the targets.

He finished by speaking about the current problems caused in the local area as a result of the airport’s location. The South West region of the country is already losing “millions of pounds” because local people travel abroad to spend their hard-earned cash, and tourists do not bring in enough money to compensate for this fact.