UK approves third runway at Heathrow Airport

The UK government has approved a third runway at Heathrow, paving the way for hundreds of thousands more flights a year at the London airport.

Following a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, ministers endorsed the recommendations of the Airports Commission to expand Heathrow rather than Gatwick airport, which had hoped to build a second runway.

“The step that government is taking today is truly momentous,” transport secretary Chris Grayling said. “I am proud that after years of discussion and delay this government is taking decisive action to secure the UK’s place in the global aviation market – securing jobs and business opportunities for the next decade and beyond.”

The government said that it would propose a six-and-a-half-hour ban on scheduled night flights, and will make stringent night noise restrictions a requirement of expansion. A public consultation will now be held, before the government makes a final decision as part of a national policy statement on aviation. The decision will then be voted on by Parliament in 2017 or 2018. The Airports Commission has said that construction is not likely to begin until 2020 or 2021, meaning that it is unlikely that any new runway would be operational before 2025.

Foreign secretary and former London mayor Boris Johnson said a third runway at Heathrow was “undeliverable”.

"The day when the bulldozers appear is a long way off, if indeed they ever materialise,” he said.

London mayor Sadiq Khan also said that expanding the west London airport was the wrong decision for both London and the UK.

“A new runway at Heathrow will be devastating for air quality across London – air pollution around the airport is already above legal levels of NO2,” he said. “Heathrow already exposes more people to aircraft noise than Paris CDG, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Munich and Madrid combined. A third runway would mean an extra 200,000 people impacted, exposing 124 more schools and 43,200 more schoolchildren to an unacceptable level of noise.”

Tory MP Zac Goldmith – who had lost out to Khan in last May’s London mayorship election – announced that he would resign his seat, triggering a byelection.