Environmental groups filed lawsuits seeking to thwart expansion at Heathrow airport, with two separate complaints challenging the U.K. government over its approval of a third runway at the London hub.
Lawyers for Friends of the Earth said Tuesday that they filed a request for a judicial review that argues the third runway plan, approved by parliament in June, violates the U.K.’s climate change policy and doesn’t take account of the Paris climate accord.
Meanwhile lawyers for five local councils near the airport, as well as London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the environmental group Greenpeace, said they’d also filed High Court proceedings Monday in a separate case that challenges Heathrow expansion on grounds including air quality, climate change and a “flawed consultation process.”
After decades of delays tied to concerns about extra aircraft noise, increased pollution, the demolition of homes and the impact on roads, construction of the runway could begin as soon as 2021. The new landing strip is expected to open in 2026, lifting annual capacity to 135 million travelers from 2017’s 78 million.
The Department for Transport is “confident in the decision-making process” that led to the approval of Heathrow expansion plans, and is “ready to defend it robustly against legal challenge,” a spokeswoman said by email on Tuesday.
The runway was approved as part of a nation policy statement, helping to minimize further procedural logjams, with planning authorities confined to considering elements of the proposal rather than whether it should be built at all.
Heathrow’s Chief Executive Officer John Holland-Kaye said in June, when expansion was approved, that he was “not concerned” about possible legal challenges, adding: “You get this with any major infrastructure project and it won’t hold back the planning process.”
