Prime Minister Theresa May’s government Tuesday gave the green light to a 16 billion-pound ($20 billion) expansion of London’s crowded Heathrow airport, ending years of prevarication over what has become one of the most contentious issues in British politics.
The announcement Tuesday endorsed the conclusions of a state-sponsored commission that said last year Heathrow and not its rival Gatwick is the best candidate for growth amid a crunch in UK flight capacity. Construction of a new, third landing strip at Heathrow will allow the 70-year-old airport west of London to handle 135 million passengers a year, up from 75 million passengers now, Bloomberg reported.
“The step that government is taking today is truly momentous,” Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said in a statement. “A new runway at Heathrow will improve connectivity in the UK itself and crucially boost our connections with the rest of the world, supporting export, trade and job opportunities.”
A public consultation will now be held before final government proposals are put to Parliament in the winter of 2017-2018. May said last week that any ministers with “strongly held views” against expanding Heathrow would be free to continue to express their opposition, in a break from normal practice, though not in Parliament. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has been the most prominent of those critics.
While Heathrow remains Europe’s busiest airport, indecision over its expansion has seen that lead diminish in recent years as competitors including Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris Charles de Gaulle add flights on their multiple runways. Fast-growing hubs further east, including Dubai and Istanbul, are also grabbing a bigger share of the most lucrative long-haul transfer traffic.
May’s predecessor, David Cameron, put off a decision on Heathrow in December when he said more studies were needed on the environmental impact of a hub surrounded by the urban sprawl of west London and with flight paths over the center of the city. His earlier move to appoint an Airports Commission led by former Financial Services Authority Chairman Howard Davies to adjudicate on expansion had in turn avoided making the runway decision a potential vote loser in the 2015 general election.
Boris Island
Johnson was an outspoken critic of expanding Heathrow during his time as London mayor between 2008 and this year, proposing that Britain should instead build a completely new hub airport in the Thames estuary east of the capital. The model, dubbed “Boris Island,” was rejected outright by Davies.
Former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne told lawmakers earlier this month that Britain’s June 23 vote to leave the European Union made it increasingly important for the nation to send a message that it is open for business by backing airport expansion.
“We can’t claim we are going to be trading with the rest of the world if we don’t have airports that planes can land on,” Osborne told Parliament’s Business Committee, adding that Britain has “dragged its heels” on adding new runway capacity in southeast England for the past 60 years.
