Representation by Bedfordshire Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board (Bedfordshire Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board)
- Date submitted
- 20 June 2023
- Submitted by
- Other statutory consultees
The Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board (BLMK ICB) has a duty to protect and improve the health and wellbeing of the population within the Integrated Care System. As such, this is the ICB’s chief concern with regards to the expansion of the airport. Health and wellbeing is dependent on a wide, complex, multi-faceted set of determinants, to a number of which this airport expansion proposal is particularly pertinent. The ICB recognises the significant benefit of the airport to local services in Luton, due to the role it plays in encouraging business in the local area, with the employment opportunities it brings, and also the support offered through the airport’s community fund, which brings direct social and economic development to a part of the UK with high deprivation. In January 2023, the ICB Board reviewed a request for the Board to support Luton Rising in submitting the Development Consent Order (DCO) for the expansion of the airport. This support was signalled by the ICB Board, following discussion of the following: 1. The Preliminary Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) and draft environmental impact assessment (EIA) work undertaken up to that point by Luton Rising concluded that the economic benefits of airport expansion would be substantial, and would bring health and wellbeing benefits. 2. The impact assessments also set out the likely negative impacts to local carbon equivalent emissions, noise pollution, air pollution, and green space, whilst proposing that these would be mitigated sufficiently such that there would not be an overall material impact on population health and wellbeing. 3. The impact assessments also referred to carbon emissions from additional flights as not having a materially significant impact on the UK Government’s ambitions to reach net zero by 2050. The Board noted that, as recorded in the minutes, “the expansion proposal is expected to have overall positive health and community benefits due to direct and indirect economic growth, employment and skills opportunities for local residents, and improved access to green space [and that] [t]he proposal sets out initiatives and mitigations (supported by legally enforceable limits) to ensure air pollution, noise, and any other potential negative community impacts are prevented or minimised.” It was on consideration of these assumptions that the Board signalled its support for Luton Rising to submit the DCO. The position of the Board will remain unchanged unless materially different circumstances or assumptions about impact come to light throughout the planning process and supporting documentation. The ICB recognises the need to consider a balance of benefits and risks to individuals, communities, and populations as a whole, and seeks to ensure that benefits are maximised and risks minimised or mitigated. It is in this regard that the ICB considers itself an Interested Party in the proposal for the expansion of Luton Airport.