Heathrow’s expansion plans have been rumbling for 10 years but the pressure has now risen for climate campaigners.
London Heathrow (LHR), the world’s fourth busiest airport, has already been capped to have no more than 480,000 flights annually despite more demand.
The UK chancellor Rachel Reeves wants to see a completed expansion in the next 10 years, she said in a speech on Wednesday. The proposed third runway could increase flight capacity to around 720,000 each year – and national aviation policy changes are what will help put plans back on the table.
But campaign groups state the expansions threaten all hope of meeting the country’s climate targets – while putting local residents and nature at risk.
There will be further legal and political challenges to the plans, environmentalists and locals alike warn.
London Heathrow’s third runway plans have been on and off the table for decades
Lying west of central London, Heathrow has been the UK’s major airport hub since it first opened in 1946.
Discussions about a third parallel runway at London Heathrow first began in the 1980s, which was cemented into action in 2009 by the then Labour prime minister Gordon Brown.
Ed Milliband, now the UK’s energy and net zero secretary, has been one of the most vocal government figures against the expansion. As a cabinet minister in 2009, he warned he would resign over the government’s airport expansion plans.
Yet Milliband never had to act on his threat as – luckily for him – a year later, with a new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, the plans were scrapped.
Former prime minister Boris Johnston similarly opposed the decision when he was Mayor of London, threatening to “lie down in front of those bulldozers”.
However, success was shortlived as, in 2018, the government released an Airports National Policy Statement that explicitly backed the third runway. Several campaign groups responded with a total of five judicial reviews, challenging the plans based on concerns over climate change, air pollution, noise pollution, and increased traffic.
While the High Court initially dismissed these cases, there was a moment of brief success in 2020. The UK Court of Appeal ruled that the government had failed to consider the UK’s commitments to reduce carbon emissions under the Paris Agreement, declaring it unlawful.
Yet that ruling has not thwarted plans as chancellor Reeves thrust renewed commitments into the limelight this week.
Why is the UK government pushing again for Heathrow’s third runway?
Backers of Heathrow, like chancellor Reeves, argue that its expansion would lead to growth for the UK economy. There have been several studies supporting this view in the past four years, the most recent of which was a report entitled ‘Heathrow Expansion: Britain’s Runway to Growth’, which was published last week by UKDayOne, a nonpartisan initiative that looks to ‘advance the UK policy landscape’.
A 2015 report by the Airports Commission stated that not addressing the airport’s capacity shortages could create costs of £30-45 billion (€35-54 billion) to the wider economy.
Campaign group Greenpeace has highlighted that Heathrow is less than 3 per cent owned by British companies, meaning that any increased profits would likely go abroad.
Greenpeace UK’s policy director Dr Doug Parr stated, “A third runway at Heathrow is unlikely to boost the UK economy but will certainly boost noise, air pollution and climate emissions.” Parr added that it would be airlines and airport bosses that would “reap the lion’s share of economic benefits” while UK taxpayers and holidaymakers foot the bill.
Parr previously noted that air travel is favoured by “a wealthy elite of frequent leisure flyers” – and that fewer business professionals opt to fly as part of a long-term decline in business travel.
To counteract any challenges to climate goals, Reeves said that the expansion would still be compatible with the UK’s targets to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels. She said that the potential and increased adoption of electric planes and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) could support this, although SAF made up just 0.28 per cent of all the UK’s supplied aviation fuel in 2023, according to industry publication SAF Investor.
The chancellor also stated that more runways would reduce the time planes spend circling to land, but Greenpeace says there’s little research confirming this claim.
“UK government policy is already far off track from meeting the country’s legally binding climate targets, and approving these expansions will only lock in more emissions and make the task more difficult,” cautioned Kyle Lischak, the UK head of environmental law charity ClientEarth.
A third runway ‘flies in the face’ of climate leadership
Concerned local residents in the Heathrow Villages have been working together under the group Stop Heathrow Expansion since 2002, using the famous campaign ‘No Third Runway Action Group’ (NoTRAG). And they are not alone, as climate campaign groups continue to challenge plans.
“A decision to green-light another runway at Heathrow would be hugely irresponsible in the midst of a climate emergency,” said Jenny Bates, transport campaigner at the environmental group Friends of the Earth. “It would also fly in the face of the Prime Minister’s promise to show international leadership on climate change.”
Bates highlighted that while there aren’t yet current applications for Heathrow’s third runway, it is a “worrying signal” of expansion plans waiting for the green light, such as those at London’s Gatwick and Luton airports.
“Rachel Reeves’ ‘growth trumps all’ approach is the kind of dangerously short-sighted thinking that has helped cause the climate crisis and left the UK one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world”, added Rosie Downes, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth.
“Giving the go-ahead to airport expansion by depending on new, unreliable technologies, like ‘sustainable aviation fuels’ would be a reckless gamble with our future,” Downes added.
It’s not just local residents and campaigners who are concerned about Heathrow’s expansion
The UK government also still has its internal critics – including Milliband – and sceptics such as the transport committee chair Ruth Cadbury, who addressed the carbon elephant in the room, saying that the government must not undermine or “lose sight” of the UK’s Net Zero commitments.
Some travel industry associations and figures also oppose the expansion plans.
“Expanding Heathrow Airport with a third runway would help to lock in the UK’s dependency on air travel for another generation,” warned Cat Jones, founder and CEO of Byway, a travel company that developed the first 100% flight-free dynamic holiday planning technology.
Jones suggested instead that “further investment in high-speed international rail capacity” had more potential for economic growth while also helping to “shift millions of passengers from planes to low-carbon trains”.
The Aviation Environment Federation has spoken out about its ‘disappointment’ with the chancellor’s speech, as has the British Regional Transport Association, which calls the move ‘unsustainable’.
Similarly, the general public has taken to X (formerly Twitter), who are dubious about the growth it will create for the country. They have also been highlighting concerns about how it contradicts Net Zero policy and that the chancellor is overelying on unproven solutions, such as SAF.
However, some reactions suggest that these expansion plans could all blow over – and there’s some light relief among the concern.
As one X user put it: “This is so British lol. trump wants to buy Greenland, Russia invades Ukraine, china goes all out fossil fuels. We want to build a runway in 10 years, it’ll go massively over budget and might not happen anyway due to some ducks.”
