At the end of October the UK government updated its snappily-titled ‘Proposed draft revision to the Airports National Policy Statement – to be known as the Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement’ (HENPS). This extensive document sets out the Government's confirmed position that the appropriate location for a new runway in the south-east of England is at Heathrow, and that the preferred solution is a third runway to the northwest of the airport with its associated terminal space and infrastructure.

Within its 138 pages the HENPS also notes that two organisations have put forward proposals for the third runway project – Heathrow Airports Limited (aka HAL, the current operator) and Heathrow West Limited (a subsidiary of the hotel and leisure Arora Group) – but that the HAL proposition is the one that the government prefers. Since the expansion of Heathrow is deemed to be Critical National Growth Infrastructure, both proposers are currently working on the preparation of a submission for a Development Consent Order (DCO) towards the end of 2027, as part of the planning process. The DCO process will include an additional level of detail on the proposals and provide a further opportunity to comment.

As part of its preparation, HAL is currently undertaking a public consultation to present its proposals and collect feedback on them. It has produced a range of documents online – search under ‘Heathrow expansion’ – which are also available via a programme of open events taking place at various venues around the airport until 10 December. Its website includes a feedback form that allows both individuals and organisations to provide their views back to HAL.

We in Lower Sunbury, being located off to one side and some distance from the airport, are fortunate in not being subjected to the levels of noise, pollution and traffic suffered by the boroughs that are closer and more in line with the runways and flightpaths. Nonetheless the current plan to increase the number of flights and passengers using Heathrow by more than 50% over the next 30 years will inevitably have an impact on Lower Sunbury, not only through a potential increase in over-flying aircraft but also from the traffic, housing and infrastructure demands of a significantly larger airport.

LOSRA is aware that local residents are likely to hold differing views on the topic of Heathrow expansion, ranging from believing that the airport is in completely the wrong place and should not be there at all, to supporting an expanded and redesigned Heathrow. However, the government has said it supports expansion of the airport with an extra runway. The HAL consultation is therefore at least an opportunity to give one’s views on how that expansion might be carried out; it is available until 22 December.

In the meantime LOSRA has received an invitation to meet with Heathrow West Limited to get an update on its competing proposal; this is considerably smaller in overall scope than HAL’s and includes a shorter new runway that does not require the M25 to be tunnelled beneath it. For this reason it is claimed to be less costly and available earlier, whilst not enabling quite the same levels of growth and operational flexibility. It remains to be seen whether this will ultimately be attractive enough to justify its private funding through to a DCO submission next year.