Heathrow Expansion was temporarily derailed by the Judicial Review (JR) in February, ruling the Airports National Policy (ANPS) illegal through its non-compliance with the existing UK Climate Change Act, and by extension, the Heathrow expansion plans that relied on it. By law, the Climate Change Act commits the UK government to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 100% of 1990 levels (net zero) by 2050.

Heathrow expansion 2019

There have been many setbacks to the Airport’s expansion plans over the years from Terminal 5 onwards: claims that several top politicians would stop expansion, elongated planning enquiries, and many anti-expansion campaigns, but like the addict it appears to be, suffering Compulsive Shopping Disorder, Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) keeps coming back for just one more hit, claiming that it will then be satisfied.  Like it’s maniacal namesake in Stanley Kubrick’s epic 2001 – a Space Odyssey, to accept this would be to seriously misjudge the machine.

HAL’s public response to the JR is “10,000 quality apprenticeships by 2030, New Routes and 180,000 new Jobs”, plus the inevitable appeal against the judgement.  While new routes could be created easily with a new runway, they could also be created by displacing cargo and short-haul flights onto greener options, such as rail or electric vehicles (remembering that Heathrow is actually the UK’s largest cargo destination, with 1.8 million tons in 2018: up 20%, matching passenger volume increases since T5 opened).  The other two claims stretch credibility beyond reason, given that Heathrow currently employs 76,000, the expansion would represent a more than doubling in size.  Or perhaps that gives a clue as to the full plan ? 

Heathrow doesn’t appear to be addressing the issues that most of us care about – the effect on the environment, surface transport, and the lives of residents in large parts of the South-East – all the more so having recently become used to not being woken at or before 6AM with fewer flights during the Coronavirus pandemic; Heathrow has temporarily reduced to single runway operation.   In the new Greta-inspired world, HAL makes additional claims regarding sustainability, but it again stretches reason that the discredited greenwash baked into last year’s consultation could have been warmed over sufficiently to pass muster this time round.

Heathrow had intended to hold further consultations and submit a planning application this summer – doubtless now abandoned – based on the dual impacts of the JR outcome, and the fact that the CAA had ruled that they couldn’t bank the potential approval of the proposed expansion scheme now, by charging airlines for it upfront. This left a big hole in the project finances, and already required delays of 2 or more years in the construction, before recent events hit.

The Government now has the ball squarely in its court.  It could revise the ANPS, and force it past the Climate Change Act by finding sufficiently favourable greenwash from somewhere.  Or it could rewrite the Climate Change Act itself.  All this seems rather fanciful in a world where Brexit nearly swallowed one government, and having had that eat a big part of its administrative capability, the remaining loose ends have now been infected by Coronavirus.

The tide was already a long way out “BC”, and the pandemic may have dampened demand for so long, and by so much that additional capacity and its associated financial burden may be the last thing HAL now needs or wants. In hindsight the JR decision may have been really quite convenient for all concerned.  But we favour caution.  HAL, like it’s namesake, never gives up, and very nearly got it’s way in 2019.  As in the film, someone may need to suit-up, and venture into the airlock that insulates the machine from the majority of public opinion, and pull out the circuit boards one by one, while it yet again protests that it has tried hard, has made mistakes, but will mend its ways in future…