Airport scheme will displace jobs, not create them (From Messenger Newspapers)

Airport scheme will displace jobs, not create them

4:40pm Friday 31st August 2012 in Your Letters

I WRITE in response to the front page headline in last week’s Messenger ‘Jobs versus green space’.

I would like to know how the airport reached its figure of 1,800 new jobs that they claim will be created by the proposed World Logistics Centre.

A 2009 report commissioned by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) and carried out by independent consultants, suggests that it may fail to do that.

The evidence suggests that jobs and investment attracted to an Enterprise Zone at Manchester Airport will be displaced from other parts of Greater Manchester and the north west.

We have seen time and again that out of town developments far from creating new jobs actually shift jobs out of our town and city centres and into what was once thriving local amenities providing green space, rich in rare wildlife and valued as areas for recreation.

The airport admits the development includes a car park for 1,500 vehicles – how on earth does this fit in with Manchester Airport’s environmental sustainability targets?

Matt Parkinson Timperley