Third runway cancelled
Monday May 17, 2010
Jubilant residents have welcomed confirmation that the new Government has cancelled plans to build a controversial third runway at Heathrow Airport.
It is the second victory in as many months for anti-expansion campaigners after a High Court Judge ruled that the outgoing Government must pay their own legal fees plus 60 per cent of the claimants’ costs from March’s Heathrow Judicial Review.
Lord Justice Carnwath ruled that the 2003 Air Transport White Paper – the foundation of expansion plans across the country – was obsolete because it was inconsistent with the Climate Change Act 2008. He dismissed the Government’s claims to the contrary as ‘untenable’.
Councillor Nick Botterill, Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Cabinet Member for Environment, says: “First we won in the courts and now we have got the new Government confirming that the third runway has been grounded for good.
“This is fantastic news for west Londoners but this will not be the end of our campaigning. We want to ensure that the current relief offered to residents by runway alternation is maintained and we will be pressing for reductions in night flights and more stringent noise controls.”
H&F was one of six councils which joined forces with environmental groups to challenge the previous Government’s support for a new runway. The councils argued that new climate change laws meant the whole economic case for expansion had to be revisited. The lack of any credible plans to help transport millions of extra passengers to an expanded Heathrow was also presented to the court.
In March Lord Justice Carnwath made his landmark ruling that the then Government was wrong to have proceeded as if nothing had changed since the 2003 airports White Paper setting out plans for airport expansion across the UK. Judge Carnwath said the coalition of local councils and environmental groups had achieved a ‘substantial success’ in their challenge.
John Stewart, chairman of anti-Heathrow expansion group HACAN Clearskies, hailed the new Government’s decision, as it ‘cements the victory that we all had’ in March.
The councils who supported the legal challenge are all members of the 2M Group – an alliance of local authorities concerned about the environmental impact of Heathrow expansion on their communities. The group, which took its name from the two million residents of the original 12 authorities, now represents a combined population of five million people.
Cllr Botterill concludes: "The Government now has the chance to draw a line under an unsatisfactory period of public administration when too often it seemed that the aviation lobby’s interests were put ahead of local people’s concerns about their quality of life."
