Third Runway and Sixth Terminal

The Government are giving Third Runway and Sixth Terminal the go-ahead, but only once noise and air quality conditions have been met. Additional capacity must not compromise air quality and noise limits. The Environment Agency will be able to enforce these limits for air quality, and the Civil Aviation Authority for noise.

Initial use of the third runway will be limited to 125,000 airplane movements per year (the original proposal was for 225,000). Any increase to this must be approved by the Government's Committee on Climate Change. Additional capacity will only be made only available to "greener" airplanes.

To help offset the increased CO₂ emissions created by this additional capacity, £250 million has been allocated to promote the take-up and commercialisation of ultra low emission road vehicles. In addition, the UK will press for international aviation to be part of global deal on climate change at Copenhagen later this year.

The Government anticipates that the third runway will be in operation earlier than the originally proposed target of 2020.

No Mixed mode
- for now

The Government recognises the value the half-day periods of respite those living under the flightpath gain from runway alternation. They will therefore not be introducing mixed mode on the existing runways, and Richmond will continue to benefit from this respite during the 70% of the time when planes are landing towards the west.

However, they will be abolishing the Cranford agreement. This will distribute landing noise more evenly to the east of Heathrow during the 30% of time when planes land towards the east. However, it may also reroute more planes taking off towards the east over Richmond.

Improved Rail access to Heathrow

Airtrack is already proceeding as part of the Terminal 5 project.

In addition, the Government will initiate the "High Speed 2" project to create fast train links between London and Scotland. They will also investigate building a Heathrow International rail hub station on the Great West line to the north of Heathrow. However, no significant budget has been allocated to either of these initiatives.

No change to other important Heathrow operational procedures

The following practices will be maintained and continued:

• Westerly preference - the preferred direction of operation of the runways except in strong contrary winds
• Night-time rotation - the practice of alternating the use of the existing runways at night between westerly and easterly preference, subject to weather conditions
• Early morning alternation - the practice of alternating arriving aircraft between the two runways between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., subject to operational requirements

The full text of Geoff Hoon's speech
and the decision document
are available on
the Department for Transport's website.