Review of airport regulation could offer opportunity to close a planning loophole

12th June, 2009

The Department for Transport has been conducting a wide-ranging review of the economic regulation of UK airports and, specifically, the remit of the Civil Aviation Authority. As part of this process, DfT recently consulted on proposed reforms to the economic regulation of UK airports.

AEF submitted a short response focusing on just two areas:

• the need for reform of ‘permitted development’ rules, which currently allow significant airport developments to take place without planing permission, and
• the fact that proposals to create a ‘special administration regime’ for airports under which the Government could step in if a major airport were to fail financially are incompatible with ministerial statements about BAA funding its own development; putting airports on a par with utilities provision, for which special administration rules currently apply, cannot be justified.

Our submission is available here.

The government’s decision document, based on the consultation, was published in December 2009