By Bruce Fegen

ANY HOPES that Fife could one day be the home for a new runway for Edinburgh Airport would appear to be little more than pie in the sky, the British Airports Authority indicated yesterday.

Earlier this week, The Courier revealed that traffic consultant Jean Bernardi, of Dunfermline, had identified land between Kirkcaldy, Glenrothes and Buckhaven as an ideal site.

He suggested that locating any second runway in Fife could save hundreds of millions of pounds, which could be ploughed into modernising the transport infrastructure between Dundee, Fife, Edinburgh and the existing airport.

His vision was backed by the Federation of Small Businesses, but yesterday the airport operator poured cold water on the proposal, stating that it had “no plans” to build a runway in Fife.

BAA made it clear that it had no role in initiating the work of TLT Consultancy (Mr Bernardi’s firm) and has no plans to discuss its proposals with it.

Public affairs manager Kevin Lang said, “In the Edinburgh Airport master plan, published in July of last year, we made clear that current traffic forecasts suggest a second airport runway could be required, sometime between 2020 and 2030 and probably towards the end of that period.

“Our master plan seeks to safeguard land to the north of the existing runway so a final decision can be taken in the future, consistent with the Department for Transport Future Of Air Transport white paper published in 2003.

“Our approach has also been endorsed in the Scottish Executive’s recently published draft west Edinburgh planning framework.

“We have no plans whatsoever to build a runway in Fife and have had no discussions with the transport consultancy involved.”

Mr Lang continued, “The white paper made clear that airports are required to make maximum use of both existing facilities and operational procedures. We believe that any new runway in Fife would fail both of these tests.

“We do, however, recognise the importance of improving access to the airport for people living in Fife. We have worked closely with Stagecoach in the launch and operation of their Airdirect 747 service and support the proposed Edinburgh Airport rail link, which will connect the airport with stations throughout Fife.

”We also understand the importance of ensuring the economic benefits of the airport are spread across as wide an area as possible.

”Currently, 15% of airport staff live in Fife and, with direct employment expected to grow at the airport to as much as 9000, there are clear opportunities for people in Fife in terms of new jobs.

”We work closely with the Fife Chamber of Commerce to achieve this and both the chamber as well as Fife Council are represented on our consultative committee.”