Five of the six legal challenges to the Government’s National Planning Statement (NPS) giving Heathrow permission for a third runway have been accepted for judicial review. The cases will be heard at the High Court in March 19. The challenges, by local authorities and environmental groups, claim that the Government’s decision is unlawful because it fails to address the UK’s obligations on climate change, air quality, and other environmental and access grounds.
If the legal challenges succeed, the runway may become unviable or be delayed until the defects are remedied. Any delay makes the runway project less likely, as the evidence of the impacts of climate change, air pollution and excessive noise keeps growing. Heathrow is already the biggest point source of carbon dioxide in the UK.
The Parliamentary Transport Select Committee heavily criticised the draft NPS for lack of clarity on the costs, e.g. of moving a stretch of the M25, and on measurement of the impacts of noise and air pollution. The Committee on Climate Change has also made clear the damaging impact of any increase in aviation emissions.
Spelthorne BC’s attitude to Heathrow expansion continues to shift. In July the Council strongly opposed Heathrow’s plans to get around the legal cap of 42,000 car parking spaces at the airport by converting a chunk of Stanwell into an enormous car park for 25,000 cars and 100 HGVs.
Stanwell may also lose open space to new roads and to hotels, offices and warehouses relocated from the airport to make room for the new runway. In September SBC issued a statement objecting to the loss of green space and demanding compensation for residents.
The Council is also actively promoting the building of a light rail link from Staines Station to Terminal 5, close to the Windsor line and then up the side of Staines Moor close to the M25.
They argue reasonably that this would be less damaging to the Moor than a conventional railway line. We wonder how it would be powered, remembering the controversy over the idea of overhead power lines in the AirTrack proposal. Trains would run every six minutes and the service could carry as many as 15,000 passengers a day. We wonder how these passengers would reach Staines Station – would they add more bodies to our overcrowded trains, or would they all try to park in Staines?
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