"UK airport expansion plans face High Court challenge"

Monday, June 14, 2004

Airport expansion plans face High Court challenge 
By Kevin Done
United Kingdom - The Financial Times

 
Plans for the expansion of airport capacity, in particular in south-east
England, are to be challenged in the High Court.
 
Opponents of the proposals, which include building a second runway at
Stansted, have been given permission for a full judicial review of the white
paper on the future of air transport published in December.

The High Court will hear two parallel claims, one brought by community
groups fighting the expansion of Stansted and Heathrow who are acting with
the west London boroughs of Hillingdon and Wandsworth, and a second brought
by five Hertfordshire and Essex local authorities.

Both actions claim the white paper was "fundamentally flawed" and the
conclusions it reached were "irrational and inconsistent with the
government's own policies and with the consultation ground rules". No date
has been set for the hearing.

Campaigners against the runways have already succeeded in delaying the white
paper by eight months, when a judicial review forced the government to
repeat its consultation process on the grounds that it had wrongly excluded
Gatwick airport as one option for the building of a second runway.

The latest action claims the white paper ignored "the absence of a
commercial justification for a second Stansted runway" and the consultation
failed to provide the public with information about alternative Thames
estuary airport proposals.

BAA, operator of the three main London airports, is in the early stages of
planning for the building of a second runway and a second terminal at
Stansted, in a project estimated to cost £2bn.


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