Following today’s decision by the Planning Inspectorate to allow London Stansted’s appeal against Uttlesford District Council’s refusal to grant planning permission for the airport to serve up to 43 million passengers a year, London Stansted’s Managing Director, Steve Griffiths, said:
“We welcome the decision of the Planning Inspectorate to grant permission to increase the number of passengers London Stansted is able to serve following the recent independent Public Inquiry.
“Our original planning application to serve up to 43 million passengers a year followed extensive public engagement and set out how the airport could grow with no additional flights and a reduced noise limit. Throughout, the aim was to provide clarity and certainty for local communities and we feel today’s decision is a strong endorsement of our approach and the strength of the case we made at the Inquiry.
“The Planning Inspectorate’s decision provides clear assurance to local communities that Stansted’s growth can be delivered in a responsible and sustainable way. This decision allows us, the community and our airline partners to plan ahead with certainty.
“We always believed that UDC failed to provide any credible or substantiated reasons to justify refusing the application, while ignoring the clear advice it received from its own officers and expert legal advisors, and this belief is borne out with the Inspectors’ conclusion that planning permission should have been granted by the Council and the appeal should not have been necessary.
“We will now take time to study the full detail of the decision before commenting further.”
