4. What are the main planning issues affecting the third runway option at Heathrow? While capacity has been constrained at Heathrow, the UK’s main international hub airport for the last 10 years, competitors at other international hub airports, such as Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam, have more spare capacity and can therefore provide more services for their customers. As part of the independent review of this problem, Heathrow’s New Approach document 2014 (http://your.heathrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/A-New-

Approach-2014-Web-2.pdf) argues that the airport is one of the best connected hubs and is well placed to provide more services to an increasing range of growth markets.

However, with the demand for extra runway capacity in the south-east of the UK, the third runway question at Heathrow is again dividing planners and politicians. Despite assurances from the major political parties that there would not be a new runway, an independent commission was set up in 2012 to review the issue. While it has ruled out one of the alternatives – the so-called ‘Boris Island’ airport in the Thames Estuary – as too costly, the commission has stated that there is a need for one additional runway in the south-east of England by 2030, and that there are three realistic options: a third runway at Heathrow, lengthening the existing runway at Heathrow or building a second runway at Gatwick