House of Commons Library Standard Note. Aviation Regional airports
The House of Commons Library have published a ‘Standard Note’ entitled ‘Aviation: Regional Airports’.
The note looks at airport development in the UK, outside London and the South East of England, under the present and previous governments, including the December 2013 interim report from the Airports Commission. The Labour Government’s 2003 aviation White Paper generally supported a ‘predict and provide’ approach to aviation. It envisioned demand for air transport increasing over the following 25 years. Consequently, it generally supported the growth of regional airports outside the South East to grow those economies and divert flights away from the congested London 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.