Luton Airport expansion set for take-off after environmental challenge dismissed
London Luton Airport’s growth plan has received judicial approval after a campaign group’s legal challenge was rejected by the UK’s top court.
The Supreme Court has given the plans the green light after dismissing a challenge from Luton and District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (LADACAN), which had argued the decision was unlawful due to inadequate assessments of greenhouse gas emissions.
The decision to reject the challenge was welcomed by the airport’s owner and local Labour MP Rachel Hopkins, who said the expansion would deliver a boost in jobs for the region.
“Luton Airport drives investment and opportunity in our town, for our town, so it’s welcome news that plans for long-term growth have been approved,” she said.
Paul Kehoe, chair of Luton Rising, the owner of London Luton Airport, said: “This is a landmark moment, not just for Luton, but also for how the UK thinks about publicly-owned infrastructure delivering for communities and the country.”
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander officially granted Luton Airport’s expansion last April, which aims to increase passenger capacity from 19m to 32m a year by building a new terminal. She decided to push ahead with the expansion plans despite the planning inspectorate advising her to reject the airport’s application on environmental grounds.
The parties went to judicial review hearings in the High Court last year but a judge dismissed the claim. The campaign group tried to appeal this decision but due to a filing error missed the deadline to seek an appeal.
In May, the Court of Appeal rejected LADACAN’s application for an extension to appeal. LADACAN then sought permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, but its legal battle ended on Tuesday when the Supreme Court also refused to hear the case.
Jobs boost for Luton
The work, expected to create 4,200 new jobs, is scheduled to be completed by the mid-2040s and would allow it to facilitate an additional 77,000 flights a year compared with the 132,000 it hosted last year.
Luton Rising said the expansion of the airport will generate £1.5bn in additional economic activity. The airport owner also committed to investing £1 for every passenger above the current 19m limit in a new community fund, which it said would be invested in decarbonisation projects and initiatives that tackle poverty.
The decision came on the same day that Gatwick got the go-ahead on a second runway after a court dismissed a challenge from an environmental campaigner.
It was the second time that legal appeals brought by local resident Peter Barclay and the environmental group Communities Against Gatwick Noise Emissions (CAGNE) against the expansion of Gatwick Airport failed in court.