High Court challenge over decision to expand Luton airport dismissed
Campaign group Luton and District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (Ladacan) challenged the decision
A High Court challenge against the Government's approval of plans to expand Luton Airport has been dismissed by a judge.
Campaign group Luton and District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (Ladacan) challenged the decision of Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander to give the go-ahead to the Bedfordshire site's expansion, despite a Planning Inspectorate recommendation that it should be turned down.
The plans are set to raise the airport's cap on annual passenger numbers from 18 million to 32 million by the mid-2040s, allowing its runway to accommodate 77,000 more flights per year than in 2024.
At a hearing in November, barristers for Ladacan said that the greenhouse gas emissions from inbound flights were wrongly excluded from an environmental assessment, meaning the decision should be quashed.
The Department for Transport and the airport's owner, London Luton Airport Limited, both opposed the plan, telling a judge that Ms Alexander's decision was correct.
In a ruling on Monday, Mrs Justice Lang dismissed Ladacan's challenge.
The judge found that the greenhouse gas emissions from inbound flights were not unlawfully excluded, adding: "The contested issue was whether it was possible to make a meaningful assessment of their significance when, in accordance with standard national and international practice, the appropriate benchmarks calculated emissions for outward bound flights only, for consistency and in order to avoid double counting."
She continued: "Issues as to which benchmark to use to assess the effects of aviation emissions from the proposed development were a matter for the relevant decision-maker to determine.
"The defendant's judgments reached about relevant UK benchmarks were clearly open to her."
Mrs Justice Lang added: "In my view, the defendant made a lawful exercise of planning judgment which does not disclose any error of law."
The judge also said Ladacan's argument that the Department for Transport should have considered an assessment used in Gatwick Airport expansion plans "was wrong both in principle and on the facts".
She continued: "The defendant rightly based her decision on the evidence, representations and examining authority recommendations made in the Luton application."