Green MP Caroline Lucas is fighting plans to bring Gatwick's second runway into use.

She has submitted a motion to block submitted plans for the northern runway to be regular used in an expansion project which would see 100,000 more flights at the airport each year.

She called on the Transport Secretary to refuse the application, calling the application “nothing short of a climate crime”.

The Brighton Pavilion MP said: “The government’s own climate advisers from the Climate Change Committee are crystal clear: if we're going to meet net zero, we can have ‘no net expansion in airport capacity’.

“What word in that line do ministers not understand? A second runway at Gatwick would be nothing short of a climate crime – leading to thousands of extra flights a year, increasing noise, light and air pollution, and costing a staggering £9.1 billion to clean up the extra carbon emissions alone.

“I’ve tabled a motion in Parliament urging the Transport Secretary to reject this runway.”

Gatwick submitted a Development Consent Order (DCO) on Thursday, June 6 to bring the second runway into regular use which, if approved, could begin construction in 2025 for opening in 2030.

In response, Ms Lucas has submitted an Early Day Motion in an attempt to have Transport Secretary Mark Harper block the move.

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The motion urges the government to “listen to the advice of the Committee on Climate Change Chair that there should be no net airport expansion across the UK” and “calls on the Secretary of State for Transport to reject Gatwick Airport’s plans for a second runway”.

At the launch of the DCO, Gatwick chief executive Stewart Wingate said that mitigations for the environmental impact had been included in the plans.

He said: “What we repeatedly hear from the campaign groups is that the plans should be scrutinised and that is the whole point of the planning inspectorate.

“What we have to do is put forward our plans comprehensively and lay out the economic benefits but we also have to lay out what the environmental impacts are and, more importantly, what mitigations we are putting in place.

“All of that will be scrutinised before they make their recommendation to the secretary of state.”

Environmental mitigations included investing £250 million to make Gatwick Airport net zero by 2030 as well as encouraging cleaner and quieter planes.

The project would also invest in improvements to the A23 near the airport as well as implementing a “noise envelope” meaning no more houses will be affected by noise pollution than in 2019.

Countryside charity CPRE are also opposing the plans and have launched a petition calling for Mark Harper to block the plans.

Paul Steedman, Sussex director of CPRE, said: “The way the application process has been conducted has been a travesty of democracy. Gatwick wants to rush its plans through a Development Consent Order (DCO) Planning Inquiry with the final decision made by a government minister, not local representatives.”