To receive an update from Chris Nash on draft response to the DfT consultation, ‘Heathrow Expansion: revised draft Airports National Policy Statement’, which closes for submissions on 19^th December 2017. This is a joint draft coordinated response on behalf of the Royal Borough and the London Boroughs of Hillingdon, Richmond and Wandsworth.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/heathrow-expansion-revised-draft-airports-national-policy-statement

The Community Protection Principal reminded the Forum that the Department for Transport had revised its draft NPS as the initial consultation launched in February was flawed, chiefly in terms of air quality assessment. The revised draft included 6,000 pages of material which outlined what work had been undertaken by the DfT and was appended by an appraisal of sustainability, a re-analysis of the air quality assessment, consideration of airspace policy changes, consideration of responses to the previous consultation. The consultation went live on October 24^th and the deadline for submissions was December 19^th.

Members were informed that the previous consultation had received 72,239 responses; of these, 58,277 had come from pro-Heathrow campaign groups, compared to 374 from recognised groups, which included the Royal Borough and the 2M group. The Community Protection Principal stated that in response to this a document had been produced by officers from the partnership of the four Boroughs; although this had been distributed to the Councillors who were members of the Forum, this document remained confidential and legally privileged. Members were informed that this formed part of the four Borough’s submission to the Transport Select Committee, made in time for the deadline. It had been decided to submit responses under the umbrella of the four Boroughs, rather than individually. The Community Protection Principal confirmed that the Royal Borough had written to Sir Jeremy Sullivan to request that the deadline for submissions to the new consultation be extended; this was refused by the DfT but no explanation of any real substance had been offered. The Community Protection Principal said he would circulate the DfT’s response to members. Cllr Hilton stated that he had submitted a response to the first consultation as an individual and announced his intention to do the same with the second one.

In outlining the key points to be made from the new consultation documents, the Community Protection Principal informed members of the following:

·         Demand forecasts were predicted to be full by 2028, two years after the proposed opening of the new runway. It was feared that airlines could choose to prioritise international routes instead of promised domestic routes as a result.

·         Flight paths would not be confirmed until after the DCO stage – at which point it would not be possible to challenge.

·         The forecast also suggested the resilience of the hub model for Heathrow – the prime basis for the third runway - was weakened as a result of increased profitability of point to point routes.

·         It had not been confirmed if the modal share could be achieved as there were no costs given for improving access to Heathrow.

·         The four Boroughs had commissioned the work of an expert to look at air quality management. She was of the opinion that old data was being used.

·         The report acknowledged that the 57dB considered the bottom of the threshold for causing considerable annoyance in terms of noise pollution should be reduced to 54dB.

·         The predicted number of jobs had increased from 77,000 to 114,000, which had the knock-on effect of each local authority area being required to add 300-500 new dwellings per year in order to meet its housing need. In all it was estimated 70,000 new dwellings spread across 14 local authorities would be needed, but this would not be an even distribution.

The Community Protection Principal stated that a Heathrow Strategic Planning Group had been established and the four Boroughs had been attending meetings as observers to the process. However it had just been announced that each authority would have to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreements in order for information relating to sharing planning considerations to be circulated. The Community Protection Principal informed members that this issue had been raised with the Council’s legal team.

Regarding the DCO, members were informed that this was informal and not legally binding at this stage of the process.

It was confirmed that the Royal Borough’s Local Plan had been produced on the assumption that there would be no expansion at Heathrow.