Stansted Airport bids for second runway by 2015

Airports operator BAA today formally signalled its intention to add a second runway and a new terminal to the UK's third busiest airport.

Subject to approval, the plans will double the size of Stansted Airport and witness the completion of the development by 2015, serving 68 million passengers a year by around 2030.

BAA chairman Sir Nigel Rudd said, "We remain fully committed to building a second runway, a project that is central to government policy in delivering additional runway capacity in the south-east."

He added that the development promised to bring "huge benefits" to the east of England and UK economy. According to BAA, the plans will boost the economy by £9bn and create more than 13,000 jobs by 2030. Rudd also said the expansion would mean increased choice for "millions of business and leisure travellers".

The plans face opposition from local residents and environmental campaigners, who argue that the new runway would ruin a large area of unspoilt countryside. BAA confirmed the additional runway and terminal would be built on 442 hectares of land and would result in the destruction of 13 listed buildings.

"BAA's dangerous expansion plans smack of growth at any cost," said Anna Jones, Greenpeace’s aviation campaigner. "Doubling the number of flights from Stansted and Heathrow at a time when the scientists are telling us we need to urgently slash our emissions is madness. The company will find a passionate majority of people who are ready to fight this runway, for the sake of the local area and their children's future."

However Alastair McDermid, BAA director for Stansted Generation 2, said the development did not represent growth at any cost.

"The global issue of climate change is one which we take very seriously and is recognised as requiring international action," McDermid said. "There is agreement that the best way of addressing the challenge is through a global emissions trading scheme and BAA has been leading the call for the aviation industry to be part of that."

In January this year the EU announced plans to introduce a cap-and-trade system to limit CO2 emissions from aircraft flying to and from EU states. The trading system could be in place as early as 2012 - three years before the scheduled expansion of Stansted.