Airport decision process should be transparent

Glorious Gloucestershire Esmond Lane took this picture of the sunset over Gotherington

I WRITE regarding the councils’ agreement of £15m for Gloucestershire Airport. This is a lot of money for cashstrapped local authorities, so has the above announcement been made in the week before Christmas to ensure it will attract less attention because of the seasonal festivities? Surely, given the size of the proposed investment, it is in the public interest that the decisionmaking process be as transparent as possible?

Note also that the airport company’s accounts for the year to 31 March 2020 have not been published. (In recent years, they have usually been filed at Companies House in July/august.) Just how bad are the figures to cause this delayed publication? And how bad will they be for the current year to 31 March 2021 given the adverse impact on trading from the Covid pandemic ?

It is suggested by Councillor Jordan (Cheltenham Borough Council) that “the airport contributes around £52m annually to the local economy” and that this therefore justifies the spending of the £15m mentioned above. The £52m sounds very much like a figure from a report prepared for the shareholders by pro-aviation consultants some time ago. But how has it been calculated?

In any case, if the airport did not exist economic activity related to the airport would be replaced by other activities and the contribution to the local economy would be much the same or, perhaps, improved.

As part of the wheeling and dealing for this £15m investment, Gloucestershire Airport Limited has very generously agreed to transfer ownership of Meteor Business Park to the council shareholders. This means the airport company will forego some £650,000 of rental income.

Given that Gloucestershire Airport Limited reported a profit before tax of £139,502 in its latest published accounts for the year to 31 March 2019, it is clear that the loss of this of £650,00 will have a very significant impact on the airport’s profitability, or more accurately lack thereof. It seems pertinent to ask why was the airport ever allowed to retain this income in the first place? (Another deal done in a smoke-filled room somewhere?)

The proposed £15m investment is linked with the proposal to build a new business park, to be called Cheltenham Gloucester Exchange, on the north of the airport site between the existing Meteor and Anson business parks. Mr Hibberd, chairman of Gloucestershire Airport Limited, is quoted on the Gloucestershire Live website as saying “the CGX business park will replace the lost income from transferring Meteor business park to the councils”. He is then quoted as saying “the airport’s focus is not property management”. Can’t argue with that, so why is it proposed that Gloucestershire Airport Limited get that income? It seems to be yet another attempt by the airport’s shareholders to disguise the poor performance of the actual airport activity.

The article on the website also suggests that the investment “supports the county’s ambitions to become the cyber capital of the UK”. What has the existence of an airport got to do with a cyber hub? Those working in cyber understand better than most that quite often there is no actual need to travel which has been more than adequately proved by all sorts of people’s behaviour during the current pandemic.

Philip Drew Down Hatherley

How can overseas aid reduction be justified?

YOUR correspondent, Edward Kynaston, writes in favour of the recently-announced reduction in overseas aid, in contravention of last year’s Conservative election manifesto commitment (Letters, December 10).

He states that, even after this reduction, ours will still be the most generous contribution in the western world behind America. In fact, based on the latest (2018) figures, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg and Sweden will all give a larger percentage of gross national income.

He points to the sacrifices many lowincome families will have to make for the enormous pandemic-linked deficit this country is building up for the future. But ours is not the only country adding to its deficit. Indeed, our deficit pales into insignificance in real terms compared with those of most developing countries, where the standard of living is a fraction of ours.

Your correspondent asks whether we can be sure the aid actually gets to the poor of the world. He is, of course, not the first to raise this question. For the past nine years, there has been an independent non-departmental public body (the ICAI) tasked with the scrutiny of our official development assistance. Its work is overseen by a crossparty parliamentary select committee.

Finally, the suggestion is made that the housing of illegal immigrants in hotels should be paid out of the aid budget, but this would lead to a vicious circle, since cuts to that budget are sure to give rise to ever-greater pressure from migration. We know that the impact of the pandemic is worst among the poorest of the world, and that worsening conditions will lead to increased likelihood of refugee numbers growing. This in turn will increase pressure on us throughout Europe, this country included.

To put it at its lowest, overseas development aid has been a wise investment by UK PLC. The majority of the money ‘invested’ in developing nations has led to subsequent gains for the UK treasury.

As Britain struggles to maintain a position of international power (particularly post-brexit), a leading role as defender of the developing world gives the UK an influential role and a voice once again in global governance. If you wish to punch above your weight you

need to have something to help you land the punch – and in the 21st century, Britain’s role as a leading foreign aid donor has been a key factor.

Our contribution to overseas aid will be going down anyway, because of the base figure’s decline. To add to that a further, deliberate reduction at this time... how can this be justified? Mr Kynaston is right in saying “charity begins at home”. What he omits to say is that the saying continues: “but it should not end there”.

Martin Davis Cheltenham

Alternative opinions on vaccines silenced

A GROUP of local Stroud citizens has recently set up a street stall to offer information about the Covid-19 vaccines. For many weeks now, we have been subjected to a relentlessly onesided propaganda narrative from Government, scientists, Big Pharma and the mainstream media about the supposed beneficence of the rapidly produced Covid-19 vaccines.

The substantial minority of people (45 per cent in the latest survey) who contest the need for, or appropriateness of, mass Covid vaccination have been given no voice. Indeed, censorship on an unprecedented scale in what is meant to be a ‘ democracy’ is determinedly trying to silence any voices that dare to put an alternative view.

The recently published 480-page book ‘Ideological Constructs of Vaccination’, by Dr Mateja Cernic, depicts a very different scientific story from the one we’re being told by the scientific and media establishment.

This silencing is symptomatic of the authoritarian mentality that is on the march globally, and is even manifesting in this country to such an extent that our media – with the BBC leading the charge – is starting to resemble a pre1989 East European Communist state.

Our very democracy is at stake here – and I’m personally far more terrified by the assaults on our freedoms and democracy than I am of the C-virus. Democracies can only thrive when we have open discussion with all viewpoints heard and shared; and that process also minimises the possibility of huge errors being made – not least by ‘the science’ on the vaccine issue.

Many citizens are currently not in any position to make an informed decision about this vaccine, given that the mainstream media has been one-sidedly euphoric about it, and no space has been given to people holding a different, evidence-based view.

Our street stall will be out in Stroud on a regular basis in the coming weeks and months – we have already been amazed by the degree of support for this initiative.

Finally, in contradistinction to the ‘anti-vaxxers’ trope promiscuously being deployed by our opponents, we are emphatically not ‘anti’ anything.

Rather, we are pro-democracy and believe in open discussion with all views expressed; and we are also pronature and pro-humanity. It is arguably the ‘vaxxers’ who are anti-nature, and whose patriarchal ‘scientific’ approach to illness and its prevention is underpinned by a quasi-war mentality against nature, rather than one that seeks to find ways to work in a complementary way with its grain. Richard House Stroud

Vandals should leave roadworks signs alone

THERE have been roadworks at the end of the road in Gotherington, with traffic lights.

Rather than wait a few minutes, many drivers have used a nearby lane as a ‘rat run’.

This lane is very narrow, has several bends and is used by walkers, with or without dogs, families with prams, and horse and pony riders.

Drivers who do not accept that they should back into a gateway when meeting oncoming traffic have just ploughed into the verge, which is now a sea of rutted mud.

The edges of the lane have been eroded to a depth of a foot or more in places and are crumbling.

The necessary repairs are going to be a huge expense for the council.

To alleviate the situation and for safety reasons, two large metal signs have been erected at each entrance to the lane, one saying ‘slow’ and one ‘local access only’.

Large heavy cones and a ‘slow’ sign have been placed at the junction opposite the farm where drivers have cut the corner and created another muddy mess.

Almost on a daily basis these cones and signs have been driven into, driven over, badly damaged, and one cone was even flung over the adjacent hedge.

Who are the vandals doing this? Walkers have done their best to prop the damaged signs up, only for them to be wrecked again the next day.

These signs are council property and are there for safety reasons.

Let’s hope the vandals are on Santa’s naughty list and don’t get any presents this year.

Perhaps then they will have the common sense to leave the signs alone.

Jill Parsons Gotherington

Looks like Christmas is a one-day wonder

✒ WHATEVER happened to the 12 days of Christmas?

We used to have 12 lords leaping. Then it was reduced to five gold rings. Now all we are left with is a partridge. Keith Waldon Abbeydale