Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye says funding for a third runway will leave Britain if the government won’t commit. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that if the airport’s owners can’t invest in the project, the cash “will be invested somewhere else in the world.” Heathrow, he said, is “full.”
The decision, then, isn’t Britain’s alone. A consortium of investors owns Heathrow, led by French private equity firm Ardian. The other owners include the Qatar Investment Authority, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the China Investment Corporation. “It’s private money. It’s not public money,” Woldbye said. “So hence, it will not go into the UK.” He suggested a decision would come in the new year.
Who Decides?
Prime Minister Andy Burnham wouldn’t say whether he supports expansion. As Mayor of Greater Manchester, he opposed the scheme. Now he says the matter is “for London and Londoners.” Speaking to the BBC last month, he said: “I think we ought to hear the voice of people there first. It’s not right for me to just jump straight in on the back of the consultation.” Downing Street declined to comment further.
Woldbye said it would be “good to know” the government’s position. He hopes the prime minister will “come along,” and noted that unions back the project.
The Department for Transport said it was reviewing consultation responses and “considering the appropriate next steps.” It is still finalising its Airports National Policy Statement, which provides the basis for deciding whether to grant a new runway. The previous version dates from 2018, eight years ago. Last year, then-chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the government-backed expansion, saying “a third runway is badly needed” and that the government could not “duck the decision any longer.” A department spokesperson said expanding Heathrow had the “potential to deliver around £40 billion in economic benefits across the country.”
The Cost to Local Communities
People who live near the airport would pay a physical price for the plan. A third runway would require the demolition of hundreds of homes, the diversion of rivers, and the rerouting of the M25 between junctions 14 and 15 through a tunnel under the new runway. The estimated cost is £33bn. Local residents, politicians and climate campaigners have opposed it for decades.
Woldbye said noise at Heathrow has fallen “starkly” over the past 40 years and that the “trend will continue.” Heathrow is working on a planning application, he said, and plans to submit it in the next couple of years. Any decision would follow the government’s national policy statement.
Capacity and Passenger Numbers
Heathrow serves more than 80 million travellers a year through four passenger terminals and two runways. Flights, currently capped at 480,000 a year, could rise to 720,000, or nearly 2,000 a day on average.
The runway was due to open by 2035, nine years from now, if plans were submitted and approved. Heathrow says planning and regulatory issues would delay it four years, to 2039. “My biggest concern is actually the years of uncertainty,” Woldbye said.
Woldbye said he hadn’t yet met current Chancellor John Healey, but would tell him the airport “contributes dramatically to the economy” and “we are now full.” He argued that the benefits “will be felt all over the country because our supply chain reaches all the way from the north all the way to the south of the UK.” A third runway was, in his words, “not just for Londoners.”
The prime minister says it’s a matter for Londoners. The chief executive says it’s for the whole country. The money to build it belongs to investors in France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and China. Britain’s government still hasn’t said what it wants.