Councils and campaign groups battling expansion at London’s Heathrow Airport have won the right to mount a legal challenge, as civil servants signalled the third runway could be shelved.
The High Court has confirmed it will allow a legal challenge against plans to build a third runway at Heathrow, which will be heard in open court later this year.
The three-day hearing will challenge the parliamentary statement made by then-transport secretary, Geoff Hoon, which linked the plan to emissions cuts.
The 2M coalition of councils surrounding Heathrow, plus Greenpeace, WWF-UK and the RSPB, all claim the expansion is at odds with overnment targets to cut emissions.
Mrs Justice Dobbs said: ‘There are some areas in which clarification is desirable, including the issue of the defendant’s statement to parliament.’
But the Department for Transport said in a statement: ‘We stand by the decisions made on Heathrow in January.’ However, there are growing signs that new transport secretary, Lord Adonis, is less convinced about the Heathrow plan, which is known to have divided Cabinet ministers. Plans for new high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham were also unveilled last week.
Lord Adonis has said he is ‘agnostic’ about giving air transport a high priority, and officials now point out that a high-speed rail network would make domestic air travel largely redundant.
This was welcomed by the 2M group, which is lobbying for more high-speed links as part of its campaign. A spokesman for the group warned: ‘Without radical improvements in public transport connections to the existing airport, air quality problems can only get worse. ‘More than one-quarter of all flights at Heathrow serve destinations which could potentially be reached within four hours by high-speed rail.
‘With fast city centre-to-city centre rail links, most short-haul flights would become unnecessary. And with efficient links from the high-speed network, many people now travelling by plane to Heathrow to pick up long-haul flights could arrive by train instead.’
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