Heathrow wins Supreme Court challenge over building third runway

The decision clears the way for the runway to go ahead in a huge boost for the beleaguered aviation industry

Top judges have delivered a lifeline to the ailing aviation industry by ruling the controversial £14 billion plan for a third runway at Heathrow Airport can go ahead.

Environmental campaigners celebrated a “landmark” victory in February when the Court of Appeal ruled ex-Transport Secretary Chris Grayling had blundered when he gave the project the green light in 2018.

However that decision was today overturned in the Supreme Court, clearing the way for the runway to go forward to planning.

The decision will bring cheer to the aviation industry which has been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic as international travel effectively ground to a halt.

But it presents a difficult challenge for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has personally opposed expansion at the airport which is near to his Uxbridge constituency.

Delivering the decisive ruling this morning, Lord Sale said Mr Grayling had acted lawfully when approving the expansion, rejecting the argument UK targets on emissions had not been properly considered.

The fight centred on the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, and whether the government had properly assessed whether it could meet emission targets with a third runway at Heathrow.

“The court finds that the Secretary of State did take the Paris Agreement into account”, said Lord Sales. “He was not legally required to give it more weight than he decided was appropriate, in line with the advice of the Committee on Climate Change.”

Environmental campaigners immeidately reacted to say the fight of Heathrow would continue, and urged the government to step in a decisively block the plans.

“It is official – 2020 is the worst year ever”, said Richard Fremantle, chair of the Stop Heathrow Expansion pressure group.

“The onus is now on the Government to rule out Heathrow expansion, as continuing to allow it to happen would be committing a massive retrograde step for our environment ahead of the UK hosting the COP26 summit next year.”

Will Rundle, head of legal at Friends of the Earth which brought the legal challenge, said the Supreme Court had made it clear that environmental concerns must still be taken into consideration at the planning stage.  

“This judgment is no ‘green light’ for expansion”, he said. “Heathrow expansion remains very far from certain and we now look forward to stopping the third runway in the planning arena.

“With ever stronger climate policy commitments that Heathrow must meet, it remains unlikely it will ever get planning permission for the third runway. Friends of the Earth will fight it all the way.”

Before entering Downing Street, the Prime Minister vowed to lie down in front of the bulldozers to stop construction at the airport, and awkwardly dodged a key vote approving the third runway when he was Foreign Secretary.

The government had been involved in the legal fight at an earlier stage, but dropped out after the Court of Appeal ruling.

A Heathrow spokesman said today’s ruling is “the right result for the country which will allow global Britain to become a reality”.

“Only by expanding the UK’s hub airport can we connect all of Britain to all of the growing markets of the world, helping to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in every nation and region of our country.

“Demand for aviation will recover from Covid-19 and the additional capacity at an expanded Heathrow will allow Britain as a sovereign nation to compete for trade and win against our rivals in France and Germany.”

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