Agenda item

The Head of Environmental Services and Quality reported that the Department for Transport (DfT) had recently published a consultation document entitled “Adding Capacity at Heathrow Airport” which sought views on further expansion of Heathrow Airport including a third runway.  The report noted the Council’s previous policy in respect of the Airport and the fact that the Council had generally been positive about expansion, given the attendant economic benefits for the town, provided that environmental impacts were sufficiently mitigated.  However, following recent proposals, the Council was forming the basic view that the current expansion proposals were of great concern and that alternatives should be examined, including the development of other UK airports and high speed train links.  The Council believed that the economic arguments had not been properly justified and that the rights of residents in the area should carry more weight than they appear to have been given under the current expansion proposals.

The Officer submitted a draft response to the consultation paper and sought the views of the Committee on his response.

Whilst generally supporting the response, Members felt that the responses in respect of question 3 needed to be more robust to stress the following points:-

·  Drawing attention to the continuing poor transport links to the Airport, particularly from Slough and west and the urgent need for substantial rail improvements.  In reaching this conclusion, the Committee noted that even with the increased use of trains and the underground it was anticipated a doubling of the road traffic to the Airport and this was considered by the Committee to be completely unsustainable both in terms of congestion, increased pollution, etc which would impact seriously on Slough.

·  In this regard the Committee also felt that there should be a recommendation that, like the other major airport hubs in Western Europe, Heathrow should be linked to the high speed rail network.

·  The complete inadequacy of the current rail system servicing Heathrow was noted with concern.

·  Members were concerned that the addition of a third runway would lead to further areas of Slough being overflown by aircraft including parts of Langley which were not seriously affected at the moment.  Whilst noting the Government’s assertion about aircraft becoming even quieter, local Councillors expressed concern at this development.

·  The general view of the Committee was that, whilst accepting the large economic benefits to the town of the Airport, the point was not rapidly being reached where these benefits were being outweighed by the significant disadvantages of increased disturbance, pollution and transport infrastructure problems.

The Committee also noted and endorsed the wording of a motion referred to it by the Council from its meeting on 11^th December, 2007.

Resolved -   That the unanimous views of the Committee on this matter be referred to the Cabinet for consideration.