Approval for Gatwick Airport second runway is highly damaging for Sussex

CPRE Sussex Director’s column written for The Argus, 7 October 2025.

The appalling decision to approve a second runway at Gatwick Airport is highly damaging to Sussex and the global environment. 

This is not just an act of vandalism against the countryside and our climate – it is economically illiterate. 

However, despite the decision by transport secretary Heidi Alexander, the fight is not over yet. 

CAGNE Gatwick, the campaign group which has long fought the airport expansion, is planning a judicial review. 

We at CPRE Sussex have already pledged our support, including making £5,000 available to support the legal challenge.  

But the campaign needs everyone to get involved if we are to fight a government which seems intent to build at all costs. 

So why are we, and so many others, against the second runway at Gatwick? 

CPRE Sussex has long opposed Gatwick Airport expansion. 

A second runway will bring more noise, congestion and pollution to neighbouring communities and to the protected landscapes of the High Weald and South Downs National Park. 

The expansion will damage the health and wellbeing of residents, impact wildlife and further harm the tranquillity of the countryside. 

Air quality issues will not improve no matter what fuel type is used, light pollution will increase, and residents will face more disruption from aircraft noise. 

The single biggest threat to the countryside is climate change and this expansion will significantly increase greenhouse gas pollution.  

This increased pollution will come not just from more flights but also increased travel to the airport by road and increased out-of-airport transport supporting its operations. 

The Gatwick bid was overly reliant on frankly fantasy ‘Jet Zero’ approaches to future fuels for aviation.  

There are real questions to be answered as to whether they can be available at global scales in a way that would allow net zero ambitions to be met – and on current data, the answer is simply ‘no’. 

Yet the government is just crossing its fingers that unproven and unscalable technologies will magically make the problem of air pollution go away. 

Net zero is important because we need to lower the levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere.  

Off-setting schemes or biomass-based fuels do not help with that as they could leave the same amount of GHGs in the atmosphere. That is not good enough.  

Sussex residents are already feeling the effects of climate change on their lives. 

Heatwaves with temperatures of 40C arrived more than 20 years earlier than expected. 

We have seen increased flooding, overheating in homes, more intense and frequent storms and coastal effects that could increase erosion.  

There is real public concern about the frequency and scale of weather extremes.  

A second runway does nothing to improve that. In fact, it will make it worse. 

And this expansion will not just affect the environment – it will also impact Sussex’s social conditions for the worse.  

The airport claims its plans will create thousands of new jobs but the infrastructure to support these employees simply does not exist. 

Crawley cannot meet the housing needs of current residents let alone thousands of new ones. Our rail system is already overcrowded. Doctors and other healthcare services are overstretched. 

How will the surrounding area support more than 18,000 new employees and their families? 

Ironically, the Gatwick Airport expansion actually goes against government policy which favours Heathrow for any expansion in capacity.  

This proposal is not ‘making best use of’ existing resources. It is a rebuild of the airport to accommodate a new second runway.   

The main reasoning behind approval of the expansion appears to be economic growth. 

However, airport expansion will not deliver the boost to UK growth that the government wants.  

There has been no net increase in air travel for business purposes or in jobs in air transport since 2007.  

Recent research from the New Economic Foundation indicates that airport expansion will drive significant tourism revenue abroad, not bring it to the UK.  

To create the jobs of the future we need investment in low-carbon industries and transport, not more unsustainable expansion of the UK’s airports. 

Even if an expanded Gatwick was a magnet for economic activity, its associated social and environmental harms will be geographically widespread, substantial, long-term and cannot be mitigated with any certainty. 

Of course, we have made all these arguments successfully in the past.  

Earlier this year, the Planning Inspectorate recommended refusal based on Gatwick’s existing proposal. 

Initially, the Planning Inspectorate had not proposed having a hearing dedicated to climate change.  

Our former chair Prof Dan Osborn successfully lobbied for this and went on to make a powerful case for how damaging the plans are from a climate point of view.  

He effectively demolished the reliance on the government’s Jet Zero strategy. 

In their decision, the Planning Inspectorate concluded the expansion would have a material effect on achieving carbon targets.  

They also highlighted harm in matters of traffic and transport, ecology, noise, the water environment, health and wellbeing, landscape, townscape and heritage assets. 

The decision marked a major step as previously emissions from aviation have often not been considered significant in planning terms. 

However, despite this clear acknowledgement of the harms of the proposal, the runway has now been approved by the government. 

That means we must once again fight to protect our countryside, our health and wellbeing, nature and the wider environment. 

If you would like to support the judicial review you can visit the CAGNE fundraising page at https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/oppose-a-new-runway-at-gatwick/  

You can also write to your local MP and councillors sharing your concerns about the plan. 

Want to help CPRE Sussex fight for a greener future for Sussex? Visit https://www.cpresussex.org.uk/get-involved/