Published on : Monday, October 22, 2018
During a meeting of local stakeholders Gatwick’s chief executive, Stewart Wingate, unveiled a draft master plan for the airport .
The world’s already busiest runway has a new proposal to boost the capacity and reconfigure the airport’s standby runway for routine use by the departing aircraft.
Wingate stated that Gatwick’s growing global connections was needed more than ever but this must be achieved in the most sustainable way.
They will be using new technologies in their main runway to bring the existing standby runway into routine use. The draft master plan will provide offers agile, productive and low-impact ways of unlocking much needed new capacity and increased resilience from within their existing infrastructure.
The current capacity of Gatwick is 45.6 million per annum and the intention is to attract more capacity from the main runway to increase the passenger number by one –third and bring it to around 60 million.
It will be possible to use both at the same time by moving the existing runway 12 metres north and further away from the main runway.
The departures will be using the ‘new’ runway to avoid the issues related to instrument landing system. It is expected that by 2032, the airport could be handling 70 million passengers.
In 2017 Heathrow , the location chosen by the government for a new full-length runway handled 78 million passengers.
However, an agreement signed with West Sussex County Council in 1979 prohibits the simultaneous use of both Gatwick runways until August 2019.
The expected date for using the new second runway is the start of the summer season 2025 and it will be costing around £500m.
Henry Smith, local MP stated that Crawley’s prosperity depends on the success of Gatwick Airport and the publication of this new draft master plan goes a long way to secure future growth in the town.
He always supported the airport growing within its existing boundaries.
According to Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI London’s airports will be full in the next decade, the CBI welcomed Gatwick’s highly productive proposals to deliver increased capacity that will be in sync with the expansion schemes at other airports.
This will help the British businesses thrive and will further drive trade and investment.
The move saw widespread opposition as Peter Barclay, chairman of the Gatwick Area Conservation campaign, stated that they strongly opposed any second runway at Gatwick and will fight this proposal tooth and nail.
There will be excess of 80,000 additional flights a year through the proposal and will increase the already existing problems by the local communities.
It will put more pressure on the tottering road and rail infrastructure both locally and further afield.
Sally Pavey, chair of Communities Against Gatwick Noise Emission (CAGNE), said that the despicable behavior by Gatwick management shows their contempt for the communities of Sussex, Surrey and Kent.
Tags: Gatwick, Sally Pavey, Stewart Wingate