Members of the Gatwick Coordination Group welcome the Airports Commission’s endorsement of Heathrow as the location for the UK’s new runway.
The Airports Commission has made a clear decision in the national interest. The Commission was faced with a choice between a strong business case for Heathrow and an economically weak and practically inadequate case for Gatwick: a choice between around £100 billion greater national economic benefit and four times more new jobs spread across the UK flowing from Heathrow versus Gatwick which lacks resilient surface transport infrastructure and any available local labour force to staff the airport. Unsurprising, the Commission has found in favour of Heathrow, the significantly better option for Britain. The report clearly shows that Heathrow can expand whilst meeting the key economic, infrastructure and environmental tests. The case for Gatwick is dead and buried.
We now call upon the Prime Minister to swiftly accept the Commission’s recommendation, to end any further uncertainty, and to get on providing the airport capacity Britain needs to compete for trade and investment and to remain an important aviation hub in the twenty-first century.
We also call on him to ensure the Government’s consideration is free of individual constituency interests of senior ministers and solely and transparently in the national interest.