Heathrow’s DCO journey restarts

Last Friday, Heathrow Airport submitted its £49 billion “shovel‑ready” expansion proposal. This includes a third north‑west runway, a T5X terminal, upgraded existing infrastructure, and capacity growing to 150 million passengers annually.  This marks a critical moment in UK aviation policy, and the resurgence of familiar challenges in the DCO world.

We’ve seen first‑hand at SEC Newgate the scale, complexity and community sensitivity involved in airport expansions. Across the non-statutory and statutory consultation periods for Gatwick’s Northern Runway rigorous stakeholder engagement was required across multiple channels.

Over 7,500 local participants engaged in the consultation, generating over 5,000 substantive pieces of feedback. As a reminder, Gatwick’s application was for repositioning the existing Northern Runway slightly north, by 12 metres. 

Heathrow’s plans are for 3,500 meters of brand-new runway. 

Polling reveals a divided public. A survey of 2,009 UK adults found 38% opposed Heathrow expansion and just 21% in favour, with many seeing it as a low priority compared to other transport needs. Only around half believed holidaymakers or businesses would benefit materially. Another poll by Ipsos showed slightly higher support (49% backing overall airport capacity expansion) with Heathrow seen as the leading option among supporters. As you would expect, impact on the natural environmental came tops as the primary reason for opposition. 

It's not only the public that are divided. Labour currently has several internal balancing acts spinning, and the Heathrow expansion has been a long-standing point of tension with London Mayor Sadiq Khan remaining firmly opposed. 

At a local level, before the Heathrow DCO was paused in 2020, several local councils jointly brought a legal challenge against the Airports NPS, arguing that the third runway was incompatible with the UK’s climate obligations under the Paris Agreement. They initially won in the Court of Appeal, before the Supreme Court overturned the decision. 

Since then, Kier Starmer has heavily pushed a pro-development, pro-growth agenda commenting on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (PIB) that the government is ‘putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the NIMBYs and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation’. While the PIB will give some re-assurance that the possibility of campaigners using judicial reviews to block infrastructure projects will be reduced, it won’t disappear altogether. The Heathrow expansion still follows decades of opposition, with active networks of community and council groups poised to object to plans and potentially prepared for lengthy legal battles. 

We’re at the start of a long process. Heathrow now enters the DCO regime with fast-track planning aligned to revised National Policy Statement timelines, and government support. But the real test will be whether its expansion can navigate the space between climate scepticism and growth with credibility and legitimacy.