Heathrow’s third runway mass expansion
The potential knock-on effect for the rest of the UK’s airports if the plan for a 3rd runway at Heathrow gets the green light have been revealed and it does not look promising.
If Britain wants to meet its climate targets, then no further airport expansions will be possible until 2050. Given that carbon-neutral plane engines are still some way away from becoming the norm, further expansions seem impossible.
The Head of the committee on climate change, Lord Deben told Sky News “If Heathrow is built it has to be built within the envelope of emissions which we have allowed for aviation. It has knock-on effects. It means you can’t build similar things elsewhere in the country… It is for the government to decide what we as a nation put our priorities in. But it has to realise that it can’t move outside those parameters.”
In opposition to this view, Karen Dee, Chief Executive from the Airport Operators Association, also told Sky News that she was confident that as long as the industry kept pushing new technology to improve plane efficiency then she didn’t believe the aviation limits would prevent expansion of activity for other UK airports.
As well as the estimated 800 homes that will need to be destroyed to allow the new runway, it seems that the effect of the proposals will extend much further than the immediate vicinity and potentially impact upon the whole of the United Kingdom and the expansions plans of any airports therein.
© 2019 Whitestone Chambers