Professor Roger Vickerman from the School of Economics notes that challenges remain and that the delay in adding new airport capacity to the UK could have long-term implications, especially as other international airports grow.
‘The news that a legal action brought against the Secretary of State for Transport concerning the expansion of Heathrow Airport has been lost in the High Court is a rare piece of good news for Chris Grayling. It comes on the same day that the Department for Transport has cancelled the emergency deals to buy additional ferry capacity at a reported cost of more than £50m.
‘But it is far from the end of arguments over airport expansion and specifically the third runway proposed for Heathrow. Although approved by Parliament as part of the National Policy Statement on Airports, the detailed planning application for Heathrow will still bring out plenty of opposition. The Court has ruled that the Policy Statement was legal without making any real comment on the content of the Statement. Opposition to Heathrow expansion is based primarily on the environmental impact of the third runway which would sit outside the current perimeter of the airport, and particularly the potential impact on noise pollution across large areas of London. This includes opponents who object to any increase in airport capacity for wider environmental reasons of the type featured in the recent Extinction Rebellion protests in London.
‘What is the case for airport expansion and is Heathrow the right place? Successive governments have stalled on airport expansion for 40 years, largely for political reasons. The Airports Commission, which reported in 2015, recommended Heathrow over Gatwick for a new runway. Expansion at Heathrow would allow for more flights but would also make the airport, currently operating at almost 100% of capacity, more resilient. It is already the largest airport in Europe, and the seventh largest in the world by passenger numbers. with over 80 million passengers a year. The Airports Commission based its judgment not just on a need to accommodate future increases in demand for flights, but on careful analysis of the environmental effects and particularly on the wider economic impacts on both London and the whole UK economy. It is the potential negative impact on the wider economy that has to be weighed against the real concerns of local residents, many of whom also depend on Heathrow for employment.
‘Failure to provide for new routes to more destinations and the loss of hub activities to airports such as Amsterdam (6 runways), Paris (4 runways) or Frankfurt (4 runways) could be an even more serious problem in the event of Brexit when the UK will need all the direct connections it can get to trading partners. This is not about providing for holiday flights to the sun but serious business connectivity. Quieter and more efficient aircraft and the potential for electric powered aircraft begin to address the real environmental concerns, but they will still need runways and an airport infrastructure to support it. Much of the environmental impact of airports is not generated by aircraft movements but by those accessing the airports whether to fly or to work. Fortunately, Heathrow is already one of the best airports in the world for public transport access and this is already planned to improve further.
‘But there remain problems. Heathrow has to finance the expansion, estimated to cost of the order of £14 billion, and even if construction begins as proposed in 2021 it will not be in operation until 2026.
‘Recent problems with large infrastructure schemes such as the delay to Crossrail (Itself an element in connecting Heathrow more widely) and the ongoing arguments and delays to starting construction and approving the second stage of HS2 do not augur too well here. Meanwhile, Gatwick is itself starting to move forward with its own scheme to increase runway capacity short of building a completely new runway.
‘Just for comparison, a new additional airport for Beijing with four runways and catering for an initial estimate of 72 million passengers a year by 2025 was proposed in 2008, approved in 2013 and is due to open later in 2019. This will relieve pressure on the existing airport which handles over 100 million passengers a year!’
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