PERSONAL COLUMN
The un-Thoughts of Chairman Roskill
STEPHEN HASTINGS, MP
'That this House while recognising the need for a third London airport, is totally op- posed to the choice of any inland site, or to the extension of any existing airport for this purpose; and strongly advocates the selection of Foulness or another suitable coastal site'.
So reads the motion on the order paper of the House of Commons to which some 170 Members of Parliament have already ap- pended their signatures. The number is still growing. The terms were drafted in antici- pation of the decision of the Roskill com- mission, and the unhappy choice of. Cub- lington caused little surprise to those of us in Parliament who have met in committee to follow its deliberations over the past year.
It may be said by some that to declare our unalterable opposition to an inland site before the full tonnage of Mr Justice Roskill's report is laid before the public, is to pre-empt judgment. I do not think so. For have we not already seven volumes of evidence available at Stage v, apart from the earlier public inquiries? We are familiar with the Roskill method of reasoning and analysis and indeed it was our apprehension about this which persuaded some of us that the commission would inevitably be led to their disastrous conclusion. No, it is not the four- teen volumes of the commission which are likely to have the greatest impact, but the one clear dissentient voice of Professor Colin Buchanan. For the critical difference of approach between the majority on the one hand and Professor Buchanan on the other, begins to emerge clearly in the initial state- ment. Moreover, Mr Justice Roskill's several and somewhat surprising references to the note of dissent, made before Professor Buchanan has had a chance to develop his theme, seem to me closer to pre-emption than any view expressed so far in Parliament.
Mr Justice Roskill explains in his initial statement that two different approaches were suggested to the commission: the market or investment approach, and the planning ap- proach. The first represents an exclusively economic judgment, the second has regard to other factors such as the distribution of population and the conservation of the coun-
tryside, and 'applies aesthetic and cultural standards to this end.' Roskill admits that 'neither on its own can provide the answer', but he plainly accepts their validity as a guide and contends that the choice of Cub- lington represents the best balance from both points of view. This may seem surprising enough to those who have followed the in- quiry, but he then asserts Buchanan's view as that 'no matter how well a particular site will serve as an airport in other respects, if that site fails to satisfy planning and en- vironmental considerations that site must be rejected.' This is virtually to accuse Professor Buchanan of ignoring all economic and practical factors. I do not think that anyone who has read his work on 'traffic in towns' could take such an assertion seriously. But there is here a real cleavage. If Buchanan's argument can be represented as biased by concern for the environment and a balanced way of life, I think it just as likely Roskill will appear to tilt towards cold economic analysis.
The second fundamental. difference con- cerns the limits—necessarily arbitrary— which Roskill and Buchanan set to the inquiry. 'We were enjoined,' says Roskill, `to produce a national airport plan. Others have pointed out that the choice between the four sites could not be settled in the absence of such a plan. It was no part of our task to devise such a plan and we have resolutely resisted any attempt to do so.' While Buchanan maintains that 'from the point of view of national airport policy (which I have found impossible to exclude from my considerations) I believe there is a good case for building the new airport at Foulness in order to provide a better balanced service for greater London rather than to build it at Cublington where it would inhibit the development of a satisfactory policy for the central regions of Britain.' The contrast could not be more stark.
Another clue to the condition of thought which has led -Roskill to choose an inland site lies in two, to my mind, curious pro- positions: 'We see no reason why the pursuit of leisure should not allow a flight to Rome to see the Sistine Chapel but permit a car journey to Audley End or Waddesdon Manor.' Well no—but the proponents of Foulness can scarcely be accused of frustrating tourist flights to Rome. At worst, and many would not concede this—the journey to the airport of departure might take a few minutes longer, hardly a deterrent to anyone prepared to face a Roman traffic jam. Is there really any basis for such a com- parison?
Later in the statement Roskill admits that `Foulness has the unique advantage that it involves no encroachment by the airport site itself on to land and no demolition of houses or other property on the site is required', but he adds, 'the destruction of wild life and coastline will be as deeply felt by those con- cerned to safeguard one part of the nation's heritage as the loss of countryside and its treasures will be felt by those concerned to safeguard another part of that heritage.'
.1 do not know whether Mr Justice Roskill and his colleagues are fowlers or naturalists. When opportunity presents, I am. I know and treasure the desolate mystery of the saltings and the seeping tide, the cry of geese and the waders' call. But I just cannot reasonably equate their disappearance in one area, with the heartbreak of villages and churches bulldozed and the Vale of Aylesbury sunk beneath the concrete. The Brent geese will find a new habitat, just as the Whitefront geese, driven from the Dutch coast by reclamation, have established them- selves in the Thames Estuary.
I turn now to their economic or market judgment. The evidence here will have to be overwhelmingly strong to stand a chance of proving their case. Upon what is it based? A judge exercises his intellectual power within the defined limits of jurisprudence. No such guide lines existed for the choice of London's third airport—indeed no guide lines at all. Some method or standard of judgment has to be found. The commission seem to have settled for cost benefit analysis: a form of pseudo-scientific assessment which purports to allot value, at 1968 prices, to the loss of any building, amenity or human activity threatened by the airport, from Stewkley church to a drink in a favourite pub on a summer evening. The Commission made it clear in earlier evidence that they recognise the system is controversial since some factors are unquantifiable, yet they persist with the exercise since to ignore these factors would be to spoil the symmetry of the result. But this is surely a fatal mistake. The data com- piled in this arbitrary way are fed into a computer and the answers purport to show a difference of £100 million between the cost of Cublington and that of Foulness. Now a computer is infallible only to the extent that the systems analysis and programmes are based upon true information flows. If they are based on hypothesis the answers are equally unreliable. The Americans have a phrase for it 'garbage in, garbage out'.
The technique of cost benefit analysis may well be helpful, even essential, as a guide to strategic military planning, but in a matter involving so many imponderable human fac- tors. it is inappropriate.
No, there is nothing sacrosanct about the Roskill report, however distinguished its authors, its genesis, its methodology and its rigorous examination. There is nothing in the preliminary extracts to shake my conviction that commonsense and Professor Buchanan will prevail. If these plus the Airport Resis- tance Associations do not suffice, .there is still the House of Commons.
Previous page
