Gatwick Airport is moving ahead with plans to bring its emergency runway into routine use by passenger flights to help meet expected capacity constraints, despite air travel still remaining far below pre-pandemic levels.
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Next week the airport will launch a public consultation on its plans before submitting an application for a Development Consent Order to build and operate the scheme, which it claims will be delivered in a sustainable way.
Currently the emergency runway is used only occasionally when the West Sussex site’s main runway closes for maintenance. Under the proposals it would be brought into permanent use for departing aircraft, which requires the runway’s centre line to be repositioned north by 12 metres.
“While we are currently experiencing low passenger and air traffic volumes due to the global pandemic, we are confident that Gatwick will not only fully recover to previous passenger levels, but has the potential to continue to grow back into one of Europe’s premier airports,” said the airport’s chief executive Stewart Wingate.
Gatwick says it expects to be capacity constrained in the time it will take to secure approvals, complete construction and start operations on the second runway.
“Our plans to bring our existing northern runway into routine use will not only help to secure that growth but will also ensure many thousands of additional jobs and a vital boost to the economy for our local region,” he added.
Other elements of the proposals include upgraded airport access, highway improvements and additional landscaping, planting and environmental mitigation.
“Aside from the economic benefits our plans will have, we remain committed to our sustainability goals, and our northern runway plans are designed to be a low impact way of unlocking new capacity from our existing infrastructure, much of which is already in place,” said Stewart Wingate.
But local campaigners have come out strongly against the airport’s proposals. Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign chairman Peter Barclay described the scheme as “unnecessary and ill conceived” and said: “The world now knows that aviation’s growth has climate consequences that it simply can’t afford and serious adverse impacts on health through noise and air pollution.”
(Photograph: Gatwick Airport)
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