Advertisement

Heathrow Pollution Levels Threaten Expansion

Heathrow Pollution Levels Threaten Expansion

Heathrow should be barred from building a new runway until the airport can prove its ability to meet pollution and noise targets, a new report has said.

MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee have also called for a ban on night flights at the west London airport.

Ministers have promised to announce their decision by the end of the year on whether a controversial third runway should be built at the airport after the Davies Commission recommended construction should go ahead in a report in July.

In a new report, the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee warned that a failure to deal with environmental concerns could lay the scheme open to a legal challenge.

The cross-party committee wants assurances that all environmental conditions will be met before Parliament's final approval is sought for the expansion.

Committee chairman Huw Irranca-Davies said: "The Government has a duty to reduce illegal levels of air pollution in London to protect the health and well-being of its population.

"The communities living near to the roads around Heathrow already put up with noise and extra traffic, it would be quite unacceptable to subject them to a potentially significant deterioration in air quality as well.

"Increased pollution should certainly not be permitted on the grounds that other areas of London are even more polluted."

The Government should put in place a strategy to deliver carbon emissions from aviation no higher than 2005 levels by 2050, in line with the economy-wide target set by the Climate Change Act, the report said.

"Even without expansion, aviation is on track to exceed its climate change target," Mr Irranca-Davies added.

"We heard evidence that those targets might be met in theory, but at present there is a policy vacuum and evidence-based scepticism as to whether they can be met in practice."

A third runway was chosen by the Commission over other options, including extending an existing runway at Heathrow or building a second runway at Gatwick. Both airports are operating near capacity.

The report suggested expansion at Heathrow could create 70,000 new jobs and result in airlines flying to 40 new flight destinations by 2050.