Bristol Airport expansion 'could help pay for metro'

The expansion of Bristol Airport will help pay for the city's proposed underground network, said Mayor Marvin Rees.

A feasibility study of the underground estimated the airport would expand to a 20-million capacity by 2036, raising millions in fares.

Passengers on the underground would pay a £2 fare for most journeys, and a £6 fare to the airport, the study said.

Mr Rees said the airport was "a key market" to the underground.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), a major study looking at Bristol's proposed underground was recently published, despite being finished five years ago.

Compiled by consultants CH2M and Steer Davies Gleave, the study said the underground could be able to cover its own operating costs, meaning tickets paid by passengers would cover costs like paying drivers.

But it also estimated that almost half the network's yearly revenue would come from passengers travelling back and forth to a massively-expanded airport.

The airport's plan to grow to accommodate 12 million passengers a year are currently the subject of a legal battle.

Speaking to BBC Radio Bristol on Thursday, Mr Rees said people are going to be moving "back and forth to the airport" via the underground.

"There are going to be 150 million climate-driven migrants by the middle of this century. People will be moving back and forth between regional airports like Bristol," he said.

Transport experts have forecasted the metro would carry eight million journeys to and from the airport each year, making up almost a quarter of the total expected journeys on the network.

This would raise about £48 million in revenue.

Mr Rees also faced questions about the recent pledge to spend a further £15 million on looking at how an underground network could be built, shortly before warning "there are no red lines" in budget cuts at Bristol City Council.

"There is some confusion out there sometimes. There are different funding pots. Our revenue account, that we spend on adult social care and children's services, is not the same pot of money that gets spent on that kind of infrastructure, and you cannot spend one on the other," he said.

The current annual capacity of the airport is nine million passengers, and a fierce legal fight is taking place to expand the airport from that to 12 million amid concerns from environmental campaigners about the harm to the climate

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