Theresa Villiers served as Aviation Minister from 2010 to 2012 and has published an article in today’s Daily Telegraph on why expanding Gatwick is a much better option than building a third runway at Heathrow:
"In 2007 I called for the break-up of BAA, the company which then owned London’s three biggest airports. This was controversial at the time, but the subsequent competition ruling which ordered the sale of Gatwick and Stansted is now widely recognised as having significantly improved services for passengers.
It has also transformed the debate on where to build a new runway in the south east by propelling Gatwick up the list of credible options. Just a few days ago, Gatwick’s annual passenger numbers passed 42 million for the first time. This year alone, Gatwick has opened 20 new long haul routes to destinations in four continents and now has one of the most efficiently used single runways in the world.
Analysis in Howard Davies’ Airports Commission Report indicates that Gatwick expansion would see the UK airport system as a whole serving more or less the same number of destinations and business passengers as it would if Heathrow is chosen. So a new runway at Gatwick would deliver broadly equivalent economic benefits, but at a fraction of the environmental, social and financial costs of expanding Heathrow.
Many thousands of people already live with a plane overhead every 90 seconds because of Heathrow. Even the Airports Commission Report accepted that a three runway Heathrow would expose over half a million people to excessive aircraft noise; more than its five rival European airports combined.
But the problems with Heathrow expansion are not just environmental. I believe that a third runway at Heathrow is undeliverable. Even if it gets the green light this autumn, it will never be built. The Government is in danger of making the same mistake as Labour did when Geoff Hoon tried unsuccessfully to deliver Heathrow expansion under Gordon Brown’s premiership.
The risks and the practical problems with the two Heathrow schemes considered in the Airports Commission Report are so huge that choosing either of them is likely to result in a failure to deliver new airport capacity, just as it did under Labour.
The legal risks could see Heathrow expansion blocked in the courts because it will breach legally binding limits on air pollution. The rules in question emanate from the EU so it is possible they might be amended in the future. But poor air quality kills more people in London than road traffic collisions so it would be difficult to rip up the rules altogether. The VW emissions scandal makes meeting commitments on air quality even more difficult.
Hemmed in by densely populated areas, the scale and complexity of Heathrow expansion threatens delay and massive cost overrun. It would be one of the largest single site infrastructure construction projects ever undertaken in this country.
When I heard that the Heathrow proposals in the Airports Commission Report included tunnelling the M25, I thought it must be some deranged Twitter rumour. But that is what the report says. I hope Ministers will think carefully before approving a scheme which would involve a protracted period of transport misery on one of the UK’s busiest and most important stretches of motorway. TfL believe the Airports Commission’s £5 billion estimated cost for the surface transport changes required to support the new runway could be £10 to £15 billion short of what will ultimately be needed. The burden would inevitably fall on the taxpayer.
Even without cost overruns, expanding Heathrow is expected to be double the cost of Gatwick.
Opposition to Heathrow expansion has defeated successive attempts to build a third runway and resistance will grow. Astonishingly, the AC Report advocates deliberately dispersing aircraft noise more widely rather than concentrating it along a minimum number of paths. That not only goes against decades of policy from successive governments, it could radicalise many who were previously indifferent. The resentment of people already living with aircraft noise is as nothing compared to the rage of those affected by it for the first time.
And despite the huge environmental, legal, financial and political risks of expanding Heathrow, a careful reading of the Airports Commission Report reveals that the third runway there would deliver only around twelve additional long haul routes, with new capacity largely swallowed up by more flights on existing routes. The number of regional destinations served is actually predicted to fall.
The Prime Minister has taken the decision to look afresh at Hinkley C. I hope that cautious evidence-based approach also applies to the new runway. Why take on the huge risks of Heathrow expansion when there is a much more straight-forward scheme on the table which is half the cost and can be delivered more quickly, with a far lower environmental impact?
Politically, economically and environmentally, the case for Gatwick expansion has never been stronger. If the Prime Minister wants growth for Brexit Britain, I hope she will give the green light to Gatwick."