‘Gutless’ is how this morning’s papers are describing the government’s decision to yet again delay the decision on where in the South East to build a new runway. On the Today programme this morning, the Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin attempted to explain why the government has changed its mind — noting ‘we could have said we couldn’t have taken this forward at all’:
‘I think we’ve made some important movements already. We’ve accepted what Davies says about the need for additional capacity in the South East and we’ve said that we will make a decision on that over the summer’.
Most significantly, McLoughlin signalled the government is still toying with expansion at Gatwick. ‘Please get off the fixation of a third runway’, he told John Humphreys. ‘It could be a second runway at Gatwick’:
‘We have come to a conclusion — that what Howard Davis says in his report, that the extra capacity is needed by either Gatwick having an additional runway or by the two options that are there for Heathrow’.
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