Briefing: should the UK build a new runway?
2nd June, 2014
While the Government-appointed Airports Commission has recommended a new runway in the South East, it will be the next Government who will decide whether or not to implement the Commission’s recommendations and key questions that the Government will need to address could be left unanswered by the Commission.
To highlight some of the uncertainties in the Commission’s work we are putting together a series of policy briefs. Our first briefing looks at whether the Airports Commission’s new runway recommendation was a foregone conclusion, highlights important uncertainties about the Commission’s claims on both economics and environmental impacts, gives an overview of the Commission’s work so far and outlines their next steps.
We will publish four more policy briefs over the next two months which deal with some key questions the Commission could leave unanswered, for example:
- Are the economic benefits of a runway sufficient and robust enough to justify the social and environmental costs?
- What is the benchmark for deciding whether or not the inevitable noise increases accompanying a new runway are acceptable?
- And what kind of policies (such as new taxes or constraints on regional airports) would be needed to ensure a new runway wouldn’t result in an overshoot of CO2 limits?
Links
AEF policy brief: should the UK build a new runway?
Image Credit: Martin Hartland via Flickr