Heathrow: Harrison Grant helps local councils prepare for legal challenge if expansion approved
Harrison Grant, the solicitors acting on behalf of Hillingdon, Richmond, Wandsworth and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead councils, has warned the prime minister that he can expect court action unless a third Heathrow runway is ruled out.
The firm, which led the councils’ successful 2010 challenge in the High Court against Heathrow expansion, has now written to Cameron setting out why he cannot lawfully say yes to a third runway. The letter highlights “insurmountable environmental problems” which would make a government decision to support Heathrow expansion “irrational or otherwise unlawful”.
The letter further warns Cameron that the recommendations of the Airports Commission, which favoured building a third runway, “were based on a flawed assessment of the impacts on air quality and noise”. The letter claims that the commission’s conclusions on air quality “were based upon an error of law” and that the proposals for reducing noise-impacts rely on “mitigation measures which were speculative and have been wholly rejected by the industry as unworkable”.
The World Health Organisation’s noise-impact measure indicates that 766,100 people are living within Heathrow’s existing noise footprint. The figure is the highest in Europe and more than three times higher than that of the next largest, Frankfurt Airport with 239,000. Heathrow expansion would result in 200,000 additional low-flying aircraft over London and the Home Counties each year, and the creation of new flightpaths over densely-populated areas which have never experienced aircraft noise before.
Lord True, leader of Richmond council, said: “This letter is on behalf of the hundred thousand people who voted No in the referendum run by Richmond and Hillingdon and the millions of people across London who have said No to any expansion of Heathrow.”
Cllr Ray Puddifoot, leader of Hillingdon council, said: “The Government has made promise after unequivocal promise that this runway will not be built and local people have planned their lives accordingly.
