Airports in South East England. House of Commons Standard Note
This note looks at airport development in London and the South East under the present and previous governments, including the December 2013 interim report from the Airports Commission. Please note, Heathrow Airport is covered in a separate note: SN1136 .
The Labour Government’s 2003 aviation White Paper generally supported a ‘predict and provide’ approach, which envisioned demand for air transport in the South East increasing dramatically over the following 25 years. Consequently, it supported the construction of a second runway at Stansted and a third runway at Heathrow. Expansion at Gatwick would be limited by the Gatwick Agreement, which prevents expansion at Gatwick until 2019. It generally supported the growth of smaller airports in the South East, though it rejected plans to expand capacity in the Thames Estuary area.
The Coalition Government published its Aviation Policy Framework in March 2013 – this is largely a collection of technical changes that could be made to airports to increase capacity, improve efficiency and ensure that aviation growth in the UK is sustainable in terms of noise and environmental pollution.
The Airports Commission, under the chairmanship of Sir Howard Davies, was set up in September 2012 and tasked with making recommendations as to the timing and scale of any future airport capacity. It will not publish its final report and recommendations until after the 2015 General Election but in December 2013 it published an interim report shortlisting a new runway at Gatwick; indicating that it would carry out ‘additional analysis’ on the viability of an Isle of Grain Thames Estuary Airport, and postponing consideration of a new runway at Stansted until at least 2040.
Information on the other airports in the UK outside of the South East and London can be found in HC Library Note SN323; and there are a separate notes on London Heathrow, SN1136, and proposals for a Thames Estuary airport, SN6144.