Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info
Leeds Bradford Airport CEO Vincent Hodder has slammed ‘incredibly rude’ protest group GALBA who have been campaigning against the expansion of the airport.
Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) launched its brand-new terminal today, Tuesday, June 17, as part of its £100 million terminal expansion project. The airport’s new facilities include an upgraded passport control facility, a new baggage reclaim area, a pair of new lounges, and lots more seating.
GALBA, which stands for Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport, has been campaigning against the new terminal expansion for environmental reasons and to curb night-time noise pollution for nearby residents. Their campaigners have been staging protests at LBA meetings in areas affected by noise-pollution caused by night-time flights.
Mr Hodder was told that GALBA wanted to meet with him. The 54-year-old Australian says he was ‘shocked’ they wanted to meet with him, after feeling they’d been ‘incredibly rude’ to him in the past. Mr Hodder explained he’d attempted to set up a meeting with them but didn’t like a set of conditions, or ‘restrictions’, the activists were attempting to impose on him.
GALBA’s Chair Nick Hodgkinson hit back, stating they hadn’t been ‘unreasonable, or ‘rude” and argued the conditions they’d imposed were standard for an activist group undertaking a campaign. He felt his dealings with Mr Hodder had been ‘polite and reasonable’. He was ‘surprised’ Mr Hodder had called his organisation ‘incredibly rude’.
After hearing GALBA wanted to meet with him, Mr Hodder said: “GALBA is our opposition group against Leeds Bradford Airport. I was shocked given that I started in this role in 2021, and I went out of my way to offer to meet with GALBA.
“They decided they wanted to introduce a whole load of restrictions on the meeting as conditions in order for us to meet – at which point I found that was incredibly rude. When someone invites you to come for a conversation, you don’t respond saying ‘I’ll come but only on these conditions’. You either come or you don’t. My door is always open. If GALBA want to come and talk to me, they can just reach out to me and do that. You don’t need to do that through the media.”
Recalling the restrictions GALBA had sought to impose on the meeting, the airport CEO added: “We had to provide them certain information before the meeting started. They wanted the ability to discuss anything that we discussed with them, privately, and issue press releases. You want to come over and have a conversation, come over and have a conversation. My door is always open. If they want to come and see me, they can come and see me any time.”
Responding to Mr Hodder’s claims, GALBA Chair Mr Hodgkinson said: “We invited Mr Hodder to meet with us some years ago following a statement he had made that LBA was lawfully entitled to fly more planes than allowed by local planning conditions. We asked him to send us a written explanation before any meeting so that we could discuss his arguments with our lawyers. That doesn’t seem unreasonable, or ‘rude’, given that we were focussed on the interpretation of planning conditions, which is a legal matter. Mr Hodder refused to do that so the meeting did not go ahead.”
Mr Hodgkinson felt the conditions they were looking to impose were fair and typical of a meeting with a campaign group.
He said: “As for issuing press releases, well, yes! We are a campaign group and LBA is a business so we both issue press releases in order to get our key messages out to the wider public. I honestly don’t understand why he considers that ‘rude’.”
Mr Hodgkinson added that he’d made no requests to meet with Mr Hodder but that it could have stemmed from a ‘misunderstanding’ linked with their recent protests.
This comes a day after GALBA staged a protest in Burley-in-Wharfedale, on June 16, against plans to expand the airport. There will be another one in Horsforth on Wednesday, June 18. GALBA says these protests have been taking place outside meetings organised by LBA in areas affected by noise and air pollution, where LBA’s boss has been giving presentations on his expansion plans
GALBA plan to hand out leaflets to people going into the meetings where LBA’s boss is giving a presentation on his expansion plans. They will also hold a banner saying ‘We Need Our Sleep’.
In March, a Public Inquiry was held in Leeds to consider LBA’s request to reinterpret the night flight rules so as to allow more planes to fly between 11pm and 7am. The Planning Inspectorate has not yet issued a decision.
Mr Hodgkinson said: “The matter we were talking about back then is now out in the open, following the recent Public Inquiry into LBA’s attempt to reinterpret the meaning of the night flight rules. The Inquiry ended in mid-April and we don’t know when the Planning Inspector will issue his decision. So, there is now no need for GALBA to meet with Mr Hodder about this question. It has been fully discussed in public and we are now waiting for a decision.”
Mr Hodgkinson added he had in fact met Mr Hodder only a couple of months ago at a meeting in Headingley which had been organised by LBA.
He said: “We had what I felt was a polite and reasonable exchange of opposing views, so I’m genuinely surprised that he feels GALBA is ‘rude’. If he’d like to meet with us, I’d be more than happy to make arrangements.
“GALBA remains totally opposed to LBA expansion and will continue to campaign against Mr Hodder’s plans. Expansion would cause more pollution to our climate and the air we breathe, as well as harming the health and wellbeing of people who live under the flight path. There are no alternative aviation fuels available at scale so more flights can only mean more greenhouse gas emissions at a time when we know we must urgently cut those emissions.”
Get all the latest and breaking news in Leeds by signing up to our newsletter here.
