HCEB Response to the Airport Expansion Consultation

Earlier this year, Heathrow Airport ran its statutory Airport Expansion Consultation (AEC). During the consultation period, we worked with independent experts such as YouGov and BritainThinks to conduct surveys, focus groups and interviews with local residents about their attitudes to the proposed expansion of Heathrow Airport, and specific aspects of the plans.

We have sought views from Temple Group, the specialist environmental consultancy we are working with on our sustainable communities project, on issues such as the Community Compensation Fund and the construction period. We have discussed the details of the consultation with our Strategic Advisory Groups (which include representatives from businesses, residents, groups and elected members), read responses from local authorities and sought views from HCEB’s own dedicated Passenger Service Group (PSG) and Transport, Environment and Noise Group (TENAG).

We also asked experts from Traverse Ltd to conduct a detailed review of the consultation against current best practice, including the legislation and guidance relating to the Development Consent Order (DCO) process used for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). In addition, Collingwood Environmental Planning has provided feedback to both the best practice review and aspects of the AEC.

We submitted a full report to HAL in September 2019, which included findings from all the independent research. We have published a summary of those findings alongside the full report which was submitted to Heathrow Airport. We have also published the full reports of each piece of research.

Heathrow will be publishing its response to all the feedback to the consultation as part of its DCO submission and we look forward to reading this.

We would very much like to thank all those who we have worked with over the summer, including those residents and stakeholders who took time to speak to researchers about their experiences and views of Heathrow Airport Ltd and the AEC.