Environment Agency raises questions over Heathrow expansion

As the Queen today prepares to open the new Heathrow Terminal Five, campaigners hoping to halt further expansion of the airport have secured some powerful support in the form of a new report from the Environment Agency (EA) criticising plans for a proposed third runway.

In response to the Department of Transport’s consultation on adding capacity to the London airport, the Environment Agency (EA) released a report last week arguing the government has failed to prove the expansion will not contravene EU air pollution rules and voicing concern that a fall in air quality as a result of more flights could increase mortality rates across South East England.

The agency's report concluded the evidence presented by the government was not sufficiently robust to guarantee that the proposed airport expansion will not breach EU directives on nitrous dioxide pollution. It claimed the assessment of air quality pays insufficient attention to "the range of possible future scenarios like road traffic, meteorological variability, climate change, background air quality and atmospheric quality".

The EA also expressed concerns about the impact on human health of a new runway. "These air quality impacts will be present irrespective of whether air quality remains within EU guidelines," the report added, claiming that the effects could be particularly far reaching given the population density of the South East.

In a move likely to be broadly welcomed by environmentalists who have accused the government of failing to adequately account for the economic costs of increased carbon emissions when making its decision, the EA also questioned how "robust" the economic case for expansion was. It argued the greenhouse gas related costs "represent a very large proportion of the identified Net resent Value of the options", currently in the area of £5bn at present value.

Many economists predict that as the cost of carbon emissions rise the calculated economic benefits of expanding the airport could be quickly eradicated, the report said.

The report will add further weight to repeated accusations from a raft of environmental groups that the government is guilty of "fixing" the consultation process and accompanying economic and environmental analysis to support the case for expansion.