THE THREAT

BAA appealed the decision and a public inquiry was held during the summer of 2007. Our Public Inquiry page gives more details of the process for this and the principal arguments against the proposals, set out in the Statements of Case by SSE.

In October 2008, following consideration of the Public Inquiry Inspector's report and additional representations, the Government announced approval for an increase in permitted passenger numbers from 25 to 35 million per annum and a rise in the permitted number of annual flight movements from 241,000 to 264,000.

SSE appealed the permission in a case heard at the High Court and but was unsuccessful.

While BAA's case to date has been built on its theory of rapidly rising demand for air travel, the reality of the market actually shows falling numbers at the airport since 2007.

Locally, the environmental impacts of a second runway would have been devastating. It would have meant the destruction of communities that have developed over centuries as well as vast swathes of unspoilt countryside and ancient woodlands and the loss of homes. BAA's proposed land grab of almost 800 hectares for a second runway and related development would have created an airport site bigger than Heathrow.

Click here for more on the second runway application.

Today, campaigning efforts are focused on securing a moratorium on a second runway to enable the community to regenerate after years of blight. The new aviation policy which is being developed during 2011-12 will be key to this. We are also pressing for BAA to sell back more than 300 homes bought up in connection with its expansion plans over the years since such a move would send a clear signal that the future is secure. Meanwhile, our work to hold BAA to account on the impacts of the airport's current operations, particularly in relation to noise, continues.

* Noise from more and more aircraft flying overhead would have affected vast swathes of the region.
* Night flights would inevitably have increased.
* Children at school would have suffered even more interruption to their learning, with ever more frequent interruptions - 'jet pauses' - as planes passed overhead.
* Even those who are currently unaffected by noise could have found they were suffering as a result of new flight paths.
* The pressure on the road and rail network from millions of extra passengers travelling to and from the airport each year would have made our roads and trains increasingly congested, not least because of BAA's unwillingness to fund the improvements that would have been needed.
* Air quality would have suffered, both from additional aircraft and from road traffic, with implications for human health and ancient woodlands such as Hatfield Forest.
* Development pressures to serve an airport bigger than today's Heathrow would have radically altered the character of the region and put pressure on the infrastructure, including water supplies.
* The cumulative effect of all these impacts would have been a dramatic deterioration in the quality of life for tens of thousands of local people.

The most recent threat emerged in July 2002 when the Department of Transport published proposals for consultation which included building three new runways at Stansted - later modified to give policy support to the construction of one extra runway in the Air Transport White Paper in late 2003.

Stop Stansted Expansion was formed within a matter of days following the publication of the 2002 consultation and since that time has mounted a relentless campaign with support from thousands of individuals, hundreds of councils and a score of UK and European Parliamentarians all recognising the devastating impacts which expansion would have. Environmental groups including the National Trust, Woodland Trust, Essex Wildlife Trust, RSPB, Friends of the Earth, the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings and Campaign to Protect Rural England and others are also vehemently opposed to the plans.

This is because the impacts of a two-runway airport handling up to 68 million passengers a year in its inital phase (more than Heathrow today) and with the capacity to eventually handle more than 90 million passengers a year would be enormous - across the region and beyond. The withdrawal of the second runway application therefore came as a tremendous relief, even if work remains to be done to secure the future.

For example, plans for expansion on the existing runway - the subject of a Public Inquiry in 2007 - could lead to a doubling of current passenger numbers (currently at 18.6 million passengers a year - compared with less than 4 million in 1996) within the permission granted in 2008 for Stansted to handle 35 million passengers a year.

"I would not be debasing the currency if I express my judgement that the development of an airport at Stansted, with a capacity in excess of 25mppa and requiring the construction and operation of a second runway and all the structural and operational paraphernalia of a modern international airport as we know the animal in 1984, would constitute nothing less than a catastrophe in environmental terms."