Gatwick airport has been given the go-ahead to build a second runway, allowing it to operate more than 100,000 additional flights a year. What changed – and what does it mean for Heathrow?
What tipped the balance for Gatwick?
In February the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said she was “minded to approve” its second runway plan, after planning inspectors initially recommended refusal. However, she outlined potential conditions, including making most passengers take the train rather than a car to the airport, which Gatwick only partly agreed to accept.
Gatwick said it still needed time to examine the small print of the go-ahead, announced five weeks ahead of the deadline, which appears to reframe public transport quotas as targets rather than binding. The airport must also make some further concessions on compensating nearby homeowners for noise insulation or, in extreme cases, costs of moving away.
What happens next?
Assuming it accepts the relaxed conditions, Gatwick will start detailed design work on the £2.2bn scheme, hoping to getting the second runway operational by “around the turn of the decade”, according to a spokesperson.
Now the busiest single-runway airport in Europe, it plans to bring its emergency or standby runway into routine use. That means the entire 2.5km strip must be moved sideways by 12 metres to allow safe dual operations, with other changes such as extending the two airport terminals and installing new aircraft gates. Gatwick will also pay for highway improvements in the vicinity of the airport.
Wasn’t it once a choice between Gatwick and Heathrow?
Speaking after the announcement, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said backing Gatwick was “in addition to our commitments to a third runway at Heathrow”, as Labour pursues economic growth through infrastructure.
For a long time there had been a clear direction that only one of Britain’s two biggest airports could expand to such a degree. The Airports Commission concluded in 2015 that only one additional runway should be built in south-east England, at Heathrow.
However, there was some wriggle room, which Gatwick has exploited – and the government has now happily accepted – arguing that it was just making full use of existing capacity by upgrading its emergency runway.
What does it mean for Heathrow?
On one level, the signals are positive for Heathrow: the government has approved a runway that planning inspectors initially rejected, with economic growth through private investment in infrastructure prioritised.
In terms of the “need” for more airport capacity, Alexander’s decision letter affirms that in Gatwick’s case the “need demonstrated is largely additional to, and different from, the need that would be met by the Heathrow scheme” – ie leisure, short-haul and point-to-point, rather than transferring at a major international hub for business travel.
Nonetheless, Heathrow’s proposals are a different order of magnitude: £21bn for the runway and up to £48bn in total for expansion. Plus, it is in close proximity to the capital, swallowing up land, demolishing houses and moving Britain’s busiest motorway, the M25.
Gatwick supporters have included people such as the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, who see it as an alternative and hedge against Heathrow. The residents of rural Sussex will be fearing a big increase in aircraft noise but hundreds of thousands more people would be subject to the noise and pollution from a third Heathrow runway.
What about the environment?
Britain’s mantra may not be drill, baby, drill – but with expansion also approved at London’s Stansted, City and Luton airports, it could well be fly, baby, fly. The government maintains that this is all doable with “strict environmental requirements”.
However, as the Commons transport committee chair, Ruth Cadbury, says: “They continue to say they are committed to reducing carbon emissions, but we are waiting for them to show us how they will square the circle of doing so while enabling thousands more flights.”
Alexander’s decision letter said she considered that net carbon emissions from a bigger Gatwick “will decrease as measures to reduce emissions from aviation are delivered”.
Replacing the oldest aircraft will reduce emissions per passenger but much hinges on sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Even putting aside questions about their validity or feasibility, the net CO2 emitted from fuel containing SAF is projected to reduce by about 1% a year in the UK as mandates grow; flights are growing by 2-3% a year. By the end of the next decade, passengers could number 75 million at Gatwick compared with 43 million today.
Will it boost the economy?
Gatwick says the scheme will create 14,000 jobs and contribute £1bn annually to the region’s economy. Some thinktanks dispute whether airport growth really helps: the New Economics Foundation says business air travel has collapsed, and additional runways will result in three times as many tourists leaving the country as come in.
Nonetheless, others say air links underpin wider trade, and outbound tourism is also valuable: according to the travel association Abta, outbound travel generates £52bn in gross value added annually and supports more than 800,000 UK jobs.
The government says expansion will cut the cost of holidays through competition.