Campaigners trying to block Heathrow expansion have won a Court of Appeal challenge against controversial plans for a third runway.
A group of councils in London affected by the expansion, environmental charities including Greenpeace, Friends Of The Earth and Plan B, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, brought legal action over the Government’s approval of the plans.
Giving their ruling on Thursday, Lords Justice Lindblom, Singh and Haddon-Cave said the Government failed to take account of its commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change when setting out its support for the airport expansion in its National Policy Statement (NPS).
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon confirms rethink on support for new Heathrow runway
The UN’s Paris Agreement, which came into force in November 2016, commits signatories to tackling climate change by taking measures to limit global warming to well below 2C.
In a summary of the ruling, Lord Justice Lindblom told a packed court: “The Paris Agreement ought to have been taken into account by the Secretary of State in the preparation of the NPS and an explanation given as to how it was taken into account, but it was not.”
The judge said that, having seen the decision in advance, the Government did not oppose a declaration that the NPS was unlawful and had not sought permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Lawyers for the campaigners told the court at a hearing in October, when considering the proposals, that then-transport secretary Chris Grayling did not take enough account of environmental legislation or of climate change issues.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson opposed the expansion of the west London airport when he was London’s mayor and promised to “lie down … in front of those bulldozers” to stop the runway being built.
Earlier this month, he said there was “no immediate prospect” of construction beginning.
The coalition of councils, environmental campaigners and Mr Khan appealed against a High Court ruling in May, which rejected four separate judicial reviews of the Government’s decision to approve the plans.
They argued that the Government’s NPS setting out its support for the project failed to properly deal with the impact on air quality, climate change, noise and congestion.
Support from Labour MPs helped push through the proposals to expand Europe’s busiest airport with an overwhelming majority of 296 in a Commons vote in June last year.
Mr Grayling said at the time that the new runway would set a “clear path to our future as a global nation in the post-Brexit world”.
READ MORE: £14bn Heathrow expansion plan cleared for take-off as opponents pledge court challenge
Heathrow says it could open the third runway “between early 2028 and late 2029”.
Its previous target date was 2026.
The airport said the delay was due to the Civil Aviation Authority, which refused to approve its bid to nearly quadruple the amount it spends before obtaining final planning permission.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel