INTERVIEW
GATWICK IS LOOKING FORWARD We all know that the aviation industry has taken a massive hit due to the pandemic and airports are no exception. Gatwick Airport is vital for our region and, as usual, they have not stood still but are actively planning for the future. The government might have given the permission for the third runway at Heathrow, over which there are serious doubts as to whether they will now actually build it, but Gatwick is not taking that one lying down and are forging ahead with their plans to bring their standby runway into routine use for departures only, which will greatly increase their capacity and further cement the UK’s target of being a global trading partner. I caught up with Gatwick’s Chief Planning Officer, Tim Norwood to find out how these plans are going. By Maarten Hoffmann
Remind our readers of what these plans are? I would be delighted to. The airport has an existing standby runway which is currently only used when the main runway is undergoing maintenance or on the rare occasion that there is an emergency. Our proposal is to bring this runway into regular use for departing aircraft only. The new runway will only be used for short haul aircraft and for take-off only but will increase our passenger capacity from the 46 million who used the airport in 2019 to around 75 million 2038 with we have to go through a full public consultation that is under way now but we have confidence that we will be able to convert this runway. We encourage everyone in the region to get involved and go to www. gatwickairport.com. All comments must be received by 11.59pm on December 1st 2021.
The runway works, new terminal and all support infrastructure will cost around £500 million and not a penny of that comes from the public purse as it will all be funded by the airport and our shareholders ❜❜
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As you know, there will be people complaining of extra noise, so how will the airport deal with that issue? The noise impact of the airport has been steadily falling for many years now with the introduction of new aircraft that are less polluting and much quieter. We are committed to a ‘noise envelope’ which means that even with this increase in capacity, the surrounding noise will be no more than it was in 2019 due to the advance in engine technology. Aircraft are getting quieter and quieter with each new design, they are also less polluting and we are not too far away from electric planes which really will be a gamechanger. I fully sympathise with people who are disturbed by aircraft noise but we are an island nation and we need to trade, now more than ever, and that is very difficult to do without world-class airports. Our job is to minimise that disturbance in every way possible as these people are our passengers, our employees and our support businesses. The long-standing government policy is very clear – ‘airports should make best use of existing facilities’ and that is exactly what Gatwick is doing with this plan. I am also proud to say that the airport itself will be carbon net-zero by 2040 and l believe that to be a tremendous achievement.
