Heathrow expansion: Cameron promises decision this year

Heathrow expansion: Cameron promises decision this year

The government will make a decision on airport expansion by the end of the year, David Cameron has said.

The PM was speaking after the Airports Commission recommended a third runway at Heathrow as its chosen solution.

Several high-profile Conservatives are opposed to Heathrow expansion, including London mayor Boris Johnson, who predicted it "won't happen".

Labour said it favoured a new Heathrow runway and claimed Mr Cameron was being "bullied by Boris".

In its final report, the commission, set up under the previous coalition government, said it would add £147bn to the economy and 70,000 jobs by 2050.

Mr Cameron, who ruled out Heathrow expansion "no ifs, no buts" in 2009, told Ms Harman there were legal reasons why the government could not announce its decision before fully digesting the report.

"If you make some precipitate decision or rule out one particular option you will actually make the decision you would like to make impossible to achieve because of judicial review," he added in a response to Conservative MP and likely 2016 mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith.

Mr Johnson was asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme about his pledge to lie in front of bulldozers if Heathrow expansion was approved.

He replied: "As it happens, I don't think my services as a bulldozer blocker will be required for decades, if ever."

He said a third runway would be a "precursor" for a fourth runway in the future, saying the commission's call for a law to rule a fourth one out was a "fiction".

"This is the sort of thing you could have got away with in China in the 1950s," he said, adding that the impact in terms of the environment and noise would be "so huge" that it was "not deliverable".

Mr Johnson repeated his view that an airport in the Thames estuary was the best solution.

He told BBC News the "discomfort being endured" by Londoners on the hottest day of the year "would be nothing compared to the noise pollution that will be visited on hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent people and the vehicular pollution as a result of a catastrophic decision to increase runway capacity in the west of the city. That will not happen."

International Development Secretary Justine Greening said her Putney constituents would be "extremely disappointed" by the commission's recommendation of an expanded Heathrow.

Bbc