High Court challenge over Gatwick second runway plans set to be heard in January
The privately-funded scheme, costing £2.2 billion, will see the West Sussex airport move its emergency runway 12 metres north
A legal challenge over plans for a second runway at Gatwick Airport is set to be heard in January, a High Court judge has said.
Peter Barclay, who is the chairman of the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, and campaign group Communities against Gatwick Noise Emissions (Cagne), are taking legal action against the Department for Transport (DfT) over the decision of Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander to approve the plans in September.
The privately-funded scheme, costing £2.2 billion, will see the West Sussex airport move its emergency runway 12 metres north, enabling it to be used for departures of narrow-bodied planes such as Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s.
This will allow it to be used for around 100,000 more flights a year.
Cagne claims that the impact of the expansion on climate change and gaps in the environmental assessment of the development mean that development consent should not have been granted.
The DfT and the airport's owner, Gatwick Airport Limited (GAL), are opposing the challenge.
At a hearing on Tuesday, Mr Justice Mould said that the case would be heard over four days, beginning on January 20 2026.
Estelle Dehon KC, for Cagne, had asked the court for the challenge to be heard in February or March due to barristers for the group being unavailable in January, resulting in an "inequality of arms".
She said: "We will feel materially disadvantaged, given the lack of person power and availability, and also the requirement to prepare material."
But Mr Justice Mould said that while he was "not oblivious" to the group's concerns, the date would not change.
He said: "It is in the highest degree desirable that it should be dealt with as expeditiously as possible."
The judge continued: "I am afraid I have to be pretty hard-nosed about this, and I appreciate this will create inconvenience to quite a number of people in the room."
Announcing its legal challenge in November, Cagne said that there was a failure to properly evaluate the significance of inbound flight emissions and to assess the effect of non-carbon dioxide emissions on the climate.
In written submissions for Tuesday's hearing, Nigel Pleming KC, for the DfT, said that some of Mr Barclay's and Cagne's arguments were "irrefutably unarguable".
James Strachan KC, for GAL, said in written submissions: "GAL first applied for development consent in July 2023, almost two-and-a-half years ago, and GAL is keen to begin the development which has been granted consent.
"It is obviously contrary to the public interest that (unmeritorious) litigation such as these claims should unnecessarily delay national infrastructure projects such as the proposed development."