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