The transport secretary’s qualified approval for the airport’s expansion caught the industry on the hop, says Ian Taylor
A magician was due to appear at this week’s Corporate Travel Summit in London – the first joint conference of the Business Travel Association (BTA) and Advantage Global Business Travel – and it’s tempting to think a magician was involved in the recent government announcement on Gatwick expansion plans.
One minute expansion appeared on the cards and the next, no one was quite sure.
More: Gatwick runway decision delayed but minister ‘minded to approve’
When transport secretary Heidi Alexander addressed an Airlines UK dinner in London on February 25, she could hardly have delivered a message sweeter to industry ears.
The government would “do all we can to support the sector and take the brakes off growth”, she said.
She referred to “planning applications for Gatwick and Luton on my desk” and said: “I have no intention of clipping anyone’s wings”.
Alexander argued: “We could pretend people don’t want to fly . . . or that aviation isn’t critical to the economy, but we would be detaching ourselves from reality.”
Aviation leaders were delighted. A go-ahead for Gatwick expansion was confidently expected. Statements welcoming just such a go-ahead were prepared.
But on February 27, the transport secretary announced something subtly different to MPs, “issuing a ‘minded-to-approve’ decision that provides some additional time to seek views from all parties, prior to a final decision”.
She kicked the can down the road for nine months to October 27 after the Planning Inspectorate rejected Gatwick’s draft Development Consent Order (DCO) proposals and recommended an alternative with “a range of controls on operation of the scheme”.
The Planning Inspectorate accepted Gatwick’s £2.2 billion proposal to move its northern runway, currently used for taxiing and in emergencies, on several grounds so it can be used for departures alongside the airport’s existing runway.
But it also found the proposal “would cause harm in various areas”, including that it “would have a material effect on achieving carbon targets” and cause harm “in matters of traffic and transport, ecology, noise, the water environment, health and well-being, and landscape and townscape.”
Crucially, Gatwick’s proposal would allow the airport to grow to 61 million passengers a year “with no planning controls on the growth”. In that scenario, said the Planning Inspectorate: “The harm . . . would outweigh the benefits and on that basis we recommend refusal.”
Instead, the inspectorate proposed an alternative, or ‘recommended’ DCO, with “a wide range of detailed planning controls”, including noise mitigation measures, restrictions on the size of aircraft using the northern runway, and a requirement that at least 54% of passengers a year travel to the airport by public transport.
It specified that compliance with this requirement would be monitored for a year before the runway could be brought into use alongside the existing runway.
Gatwick has until April 24 to respond. Airport chief executive Stewart Wingate suggested the announcement “outlined a clear pathway to full approval” but added: “It’s vital that any planning conditions enable us to make a decision to invest £2.2 billion and realise the full benefits.”
Campaign group Communities Against Gatwick Noise Emissions (CAGNE) saw things rather differently, suggesting Alexander had “recognised the many holes in the Gatwick submissions”, and pledged to seek a judicial review if expansion goes ahead.
The Planning Inspectorate noted Gatwick has said its second runway could be operational in 2029 and suggested: “This may be slightly ambitious given . . . possible timescales for any approval and legal challenges.”
It certainly looks ambitious, given a decision won’t be made until October – assuming Gatwick can revise its plans by April and keep its investors onside – a judicial review seems likely and, unless the government rejects the Planning Inspectorate’s recommendation, there will be at least a year’s delay to bringing the runway into use.
More: Gatwick runway decision delayed but minister ‘minded to approve’