Environmental campaigners have said that the climate and the UK economy will suffer as a result of the final approval for a new £2 billion runway at Gatwick Airport.

On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal rejected legal arguments of campaigners trying to block the expansion and refused permission for them to appeal.

Opponents of Gatwick’s new runway say it will worsen noise for residents in West Kent. The airport says night flights will not increase.

The news was celebrated by Labour’s Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, who said: “This is a major milestone for Gatwick and for local communities, with expansion unlocking investment and creating thousands of new jobs.”

Ms Alexander (pictured below) continued: “Around 13 million more passengers and 100,000 more flights will give holidaymakers greater choice and strengthen global links to help make the UK one of the most attractive places in the world to invest.”

Ms Alexander concluded: “We’ll back expansion that supports growth and our climate goals. To drive forward sustainable change, we’re also investing over £219m for green fuel production to cut emissions from flying and secure the future of aviation.”

But climate campaigners are dismayed by the prospect of another 100,000 flights every year, amid increasing signs of the damage to the planet’s weather systems from carbon emissions.

Every time a person flies to Greece and back, the plane generates around 0.6 tonnes of carbon emissions per person – that’s about the same as the carbon footprint of what many individuals eat in an entire year. (source: carbon footprint.com)

Sustainable aviation fuel (made from crops rather than oil) currently accounts for only around 0.3% of the total aviation fuel used.

Many economists also dispute the suggestion that more UK citizens travelling abroad more often will boost the UK economy, as spending diverted from UK restaurants and other businesses to foreign holiday destinations actually reduces the size of UK economic output.

In 2024, £46 billion left the UK economy due to more UK tourists going abroad that there were foreign tourists coming to the UK.

Permission for Gatwick expansion was originally rejected by Planning Inspectors due to apparent flaws in the proposal, but that decision was then overruled by the Labour government.

The Chief Executive of London Gatwick, Pierre-Hugues Schmit (pictured below) said: “Today’s Court of Appeal decision to comprehensively reject the legal challenges brought by the two campaign groups opposing London Gatwick’s Northern Runway Project, confirms, yet again, that the September 2025 decision by the Secretary of State for Transport to approve the Northern Runway Project was taken properly and lawfully.”

Pierre-Hugues Schmit continued: “We are also very pleased that this ruling, from senior Court of Appeal Judges, brings to an end an eight-year planning and legal process which has carefully tested and scrutinised every aspect of our expansion plans on multiple occasions.”

He argued: “The Northern Runway project will deliver significant business, tourism and trade benefits for the UK, including 14,000 new jobs, a £1bn boost to the economy every year and a comprehensive education, skills and business strategy designed to bring maximum benefits to local people and the Gatwick region.”

The Gatwick chief executive concluded: “This final ruling means that we can now press on with the important job of bringing this exciting project to life and move forward into the design and delivery phase.”

The anti-expansion campaign group, CAGNE, said: “This is a deeply disappointing reflection of a government that is failing to take a balanced approach to airport expansion, particularly where an airport such as Gatwick seeks to export sterling from the UK economy while imposing significant costs on local authorities, communities and the environment.”

CAGNE, which is funded by local residents, continued: “Residents should be immensely proud of what they have achieved in holding Gatwick Airport’s shareholders to account. This proposed new runway will come at a significant cost to both the taxpayer and the planet.”

The environmental group argued: “Today’s Court of Appeal ruling is a deeply disappointing reflection of recent changes to the legal process, rather than of the strength or commitment of our legal team. We firmly believed the judges understood the serious environmental impacts at stake, including the lack of sufficient sewerage treatment capacity to support an additional runway at this leisure airport.”

CAGNE concluded: “The legal process provides only specific routes for challenging a government error in judgement. As a result, we were unable to resubmit all the grounds that led the Planning Inspectorates to recommend refusal of this new runway application through the planning development consent order.”

In an earlier statement, CAGNE argued: “It is fundamentally wrong that taxpayers should be expected to meet the costs of new runway operations while shareholders stand to profit from an additional 101,000 flights a year and 80 million passengers. The public should not be left to pay for the infrastructure, environmental damage and disruption created by private gain.”

The arguments over Gatwick expansion were covered in the WEST KENT TALKING PODCAST back in 2023 with interviews with a local Kent campaigner and a senior Gatwick executive. Listen here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/36JUZWlaU4nJvuHPmfSxzp?si=50e240a60028458d

ADDED FRI 7 AUGUST:

Some readers in the past few days have queried my headline that refers to a “doubling of flights”. I take their point that the airport is currently promising only an extra 100,000 flights a year. So how many are there at the moment?

It depends where you start from. If we average the figures on flights (or “aircraft movements” in the jargon) at Gatwick over the last four years we have seen 214,000, 253,000, 261,000 and then 259,000 last year. That’s an average of 247,000. So an extra 100,000 flights is an extra 40 per cent.

However, in terms of “passenger flights” – that is people with tickets to fly, Gatwick’s business plan ambition is to have 75 to 80 million passengers by the end of the 2030s. Passenger flights have been 32.8m in 2022, then 40.9m, 42.8m and 43.2m in 2025, so an average of 39.9mn.

75-80 million is indeed approximately a “doubling” of 39.9mn, so I stand by my headline, but am pleased to get feedback and clarify the numbers.

Others have pointed out the new runway won’t initially be used for the bigger planes, but it is a commercial operation and – if it would be profitable for the airport – then having been allowed to build a new runway and then new terminals to go with it, there is now nothing logistically to stand in the way of the airport meeting its own goal of adding more than 100,000 extra flights by the end of the 2030s. The 100,000 is not a legally fixed limit for all time.

The new runway could potentially be extended, according to the information I have if new planning permission was approved.

Another point is that the objections aren’t just about noise which is related to the number of plane take offs. The other objections (like the hit to other people and businesses from increased M25 and local road congestion and need for rail investment by taxpayers) are more a factor of the number of “passenger flight tickets” which indeed is the the number that may – or may not depending on the economy – double in the next 15 years.

REACTIONS ADDED FRI 7 AUGUST:

There’s been a mix of reactions by local people to my article. Of the 3,200 people who viewed my headline on Nextdoor, Marcus from Ramslye said “Love Gatwick, more Spain flights please.” Darren in St James said: “Excellent news.”

Michael from Estcots said: “Consider the number of jobs that will create, can only be a positive move.”

William from Pembury said: “Obviously there is a bit of noise, but also keep in account that planes are getting less noisy, and even cleaner!!”

But Peter from Higham Wood said: “That’s Labour’s net zero out of the window then!”

Jane from Hawkenbury said: “And there was I thinking this government was determined to go green. Ha!”

Steve from East Malling said: “We have an astonishing ability to ignore the evidence of our impending demise in the face of chance for more profit.”

Ken from Speldhurst said: “In Langton Green in the last week we have had on 3 days flights directly over our house about every 2-4 minutes during daytime. We are next to countryside, so the noise impact is more than annoying.”

Over on Facebook, Aimee said: “Absolutely disgusting – there is no hope.” Sara said: “The noise will be awful.”

But James said: “I wonder how many of these complainers fly, for work or pleasure. NIMB but it has to be in somebodies.”

And Michael said: “Fantastic News” while David said: “Love watching the planes fly over my house. Good news for the local economy.”