Third runway at Heathrow wouldn’t break pollution laws

According to new research, a new runway at Heathrow Airport could be built and still be keeping in the laws.

New, independent research suggests that Heathrow airport could build a new runway without breaking European pollution laws.

The study, led by the University of Cambridge, measured poisonous nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels using 40 sensors in and around the airport, and then used modelling to predict what would happen in the future.

Professor Rod Jones from the University of Cambridge said: “If there is the development of a third runway, we expect there to be a marginal increase in NO2 coming from the airport itself, but that would be against the background of reduced NO2 from other traffic, because of Euro 6 engines and electrification of the traffic fleet.”

Most poisonous nitrogen dioxide gases come from the traffic on the roads, rather than planes in the air, and so it is believed that as new, cleaner car, lorry and bus engines become more common, pollution levels should decline, wiping out any increase from a bigger Heathrow.

However, the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) said the research was “highly speculative” and there was no guarantee pollution levels would fall.

Cait Hewitt, Deputy Director of the AEF said: “The assumption would have to be that over the next decade, we’d move from having something like 57% of London’s vehicles fleet being diesel vehicles to instead having ultra-clean electric vehicles throughout the capital. There just isn’t evidence to suggest that’s going to happen.”

The decision on whether to expand Heathrow or Gatwick, could potentially be made on the 18 October 2016, with environmental factors at the forefront of the decision.

High profile ministers, including Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Education Secretary Justine Greening, are against the scheme, with Chancellor Phillip Hammond also favouring Gatwick in the past.

The million-pound research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and alongside Cambridge, experts from the universities of Manchester and Hertfordshire, Imperial College London, CERC Limited and the National Physics lab were involved.

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