Bristol Airport is big enough! Stop it expanding again and save medieval Felton Common from a shameless land-grab by the airport.

We are a partnership of Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN) and Save Felton Common; community groups dedicated to get Bristol Airport to listen to the concerns of citizens about their endless expansion plans. 

In 2022 the airport were granted permission to expand by 2m passengers a year (despite 84% of over 11,000 written respondents being against the plans).  Now, before that increase has even been implemented, they want permission to expand again by another 3m passengers. This would make them nearly half as big again plus they want to add a 1000 extra night flights (between midnight and 6.00 am).  

Even more outrageously, they want to completely ruin an adjacent piece of registered commonland that has been owned by the local people since before the Magna Carta. They plan to construct a 400 metre strip of landing lights up to 28 foot high, plus access roads and associated equipment, which together will split the common in two and light it up like a football stadium.  

With your help we are determined to stop them! 

We need the best legal and expert advice about the planning application on two separate but inter-related issues:

1. What is the best strategy from a legal and policy perspective to stop the airport expanding and what issues should we be highlighting to the decision makers. 

2. The protection of the common. The legal position is complex because to be successful in this land-grab the airport would need to:

- win a compulsory purchase order application (because the local parish council who own the land are refusing to cooperate),

-apply to the Sec of State to get the land de-registered as a common and 

-get planning permission from the local council.

This is a very unusual legal situation with three separate but interlinked processes and it has rarely happened before in the UK. The importance of this decision is that if Bristol Airport are successful, this could be a green light for other large corporations to get access to common land for commercial purposes.

We need to fund the best legal and expert advice possible from our team at Leigh Day Solicitors in order to stop the airport expanding yet again and save the much-loved common. 

Please donate as much as you can; 100% will go to getting the legal advice. Thank you so much-we promise we will continue to represent the community and the planet as best as we possible can. Please circulate to your networks and ask you friends to help us.