Heathrow’s third runway could still be halted – here’s how

The Great British Runway final between Heathrow and Gatwick is beginning to look like a game of two halves. The visit of China’s President Xi Jinping is a bonus for the west London team, who can claim that Chinese investors with bulging wallets are more likely to be impressed by landing at an urban mega-airport than an expanded flying club in Sussex. But the Volkswagen emissions scandal has been a gift for Gatwick, because as chief executive Stewart Wingate said: ‘Heathrow’s poor air quality already breaches legal limits and it’s difficult to see how expansion could legally go ahead with the millions of extra car journeys an expanded Heathrow would generate.’

Airports Commission chairman Sir Howard Davies, busy in his new job as chairman of RBS having concluded in favour of Heathrow, retorted that ‘limited weight should be placed on the suggestion that air quality represents a significant obstacle to [Heathrow’s] expansion’. But the fact he had to do so in a lengthy personal letter to Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin rebutting Gatwick’s criticisms of the commission’s methodology is an indication that he has found himself on the back foot.

Besides fumes, there’s a real issue about financing £5.7 billion of infrastructure work (including an M25 tunnel) around Heathrow: junior transport minister Robert Goodwill says ‘the scheme promoter’ must pay for ‘surface access’ in either case. At Gatwick, the comparable figure is £1 billion, included in the deal proposed by the airport’s owners. At Heathrow, the extra cost would have to be passed to airlines, of whom by far the biggest in terms of landing slots is IAG, the British Airways-Iberia combo — whose boss Willie Walsh says helpfully, ‘We didn’t ask for it and we’re not paying for it.’