Legal challenge over Gatwick Airport plans set to be heard

The plans, a £2.2 billion project funded privately, involve the West Sussex airport moving its emergency runway 12 metres north, enabling it to be used for departures of narrow-bodied planes such as Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s.

This will allow it to be used for around 100,000 more flights a year.

However, Peter Barclay, chairman of the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, and campaign group Communities against Gatwick Noise Emissions (Cagne), are taking legal action against the Department for Transport (DfT).

They oppose the decision by Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander to approve the plans in September.

They allege that the expansion's impact on climate change and gaps in the environmental assessment were not adequately considered.

Mr Justice Mould has scheduled the case to be heard over four days from January 20, 2026.

This decision came despite Cagne's request to delay the hearing until February or March, due to unavailability of the group's barristers in January, resulting in what they described as an "inequality of arms."

Estelle Dehon KC, representing Cagne, said: "We will feel materially disadvantaged, given the lack of person power and availability, and also the requirement to prepare material."

But Mr Justice Mould said: "It is in the highest degree desirable that it should be dealt with as expeditiously as possible."

Announcing its legal challenge in November, Cagne said that there was a failure to properly evaluate the significance of inbound flight emissions and to assess the effect of non-carbon dioxide emissions on the climate.

However, Nigel Pleming KC, for the DfT, in written submissions for Tuesday's hearing, said some of Mr Barclay’s and Cagne’s arguments were "irrefutably unarguable."

James Strachan KC, for the airport’s owner, Gatwick Airport Limited (GAL), said in written submissions: "GAL first applied for development consent in July 2023, almost two-and-a-half years ago, and GAL is keen to begin the development which has been granted consent.

"It is obviously contrary to the public interest that (unmeritorious) litigation such as these claims should unnecessarily delay national infrastructure projects such as the proposed development."