R. (on the application of Neil Richard Spurrier) v Secretary of State for Transport, Heathrow Airport Ltd, Heathrow Hub Ltd, Gatwick Airport Ltd and Arora Holdings Ltd

摘要

The claimants' applied to challenge by way of four judicial reviews the defendant Secretary of State's decision to designate "Airports National Policy Statement: new runway capacity and infrastructure at airports in the South East of England" ("ANPS") under the Planning Act 2008 ("PA 2008") s.5. The ANPS set out Government policy on the need for new airport capacity in the South East of England and the preferred location and scheme to meet that need, namely a third, northwest, runway at Heathrow ("N WR"). Prior to designation, Heathrow was Europe's busiest airport by passenger traffic with about 70% of the UK's scheduled long-haul flights, its four passenger terminals handling approximately 80m passengers per year. Heathrow has an important aviation "hub" function, i.e. it acts as a passenger exchange point for flights to and from other towns and cities. Heathrow is also Europe's third busiest cargo airport, handling just under 2m tonnes of freight and mail per year. Heathrow is working at more or less full operational capacity; as is London's second airport, Gatwick, at peak times. Garwick is a single runway airport handling 280,000 ATMs per year. The possibility of adding a third runway to Heathrow, and other options to increase the airport capacity in the South East, have been considered, intermittently, since at least the 1980s.