Setback for third Heathrow runway as court backs campaigners' challenge

THE government's Heathrow airport expansion plans were dealt a blow yesterday after campaigners claimed a major legal victory.

After the High Court ruled that plans for a third runway must be reconsidered, those opposing expansion said the government's Heathrow policy was "in tatters".

But Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted that expanding the west London airport was still "the right decision".

And the Department for Transport said that campaigners' claims that the Heathrow consultation process would have to be re-run were "completely untrue".

On a day of claims and counter-claims by the interested parties, Lord Justice Carnwath, sitting in London, delivered his conclusions on a legal challenge brought by a coalition of local councils, green groups and residents who had argued that the expansion was at odds with the UK's climate change targets.

Lord Carnwath said the government's policy support for a third runway, made in 2003 and confirmed in January last year, will need to be looked at again, particularly in respect of climate change policy and surface access.

He added that the coalition's submissions "add up, in my view, to a powerful demonstration of the potential significance of developments in climate change policy since the 2003 White Paper".