Third Heathrow runway ‘a costly mistake’

Christopher Clarke said he strongly favours a new runway at Gatwick
Costly: Christopher Clarke claimed a new runway at Heathrow would be an expensive mistake
Andy Rain/EPA

The former competition watchdog who ordered the sell-off of Gatwick six years ago has come out strongly in favour of the airport as the best location for a new runway.

Christopher Clarke, who chaired the 2009 Competition Commission enquiry into BAA — the company that once owned Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted — made his intervention in an interview with the Evening Standard.

He warned that the expected Government backing for a third runway at Heathrow would risk “undermining” the gains for passengers that followed the break-up of BAA.

“Heathrow is already the most expensive provider of capacity in Europe,” he said. “A new runway would increase its costs further, scarcely the best platform to compete with Frankfurt, Amsterdam or indeed Dubai.”

The former investment banker, who spoke in favour of Gatwick at a fringe event at last month’s Labour party conference, also criticised the “pretty curious” analysis of Sir Howard Davies’s Airport Commission, which concluded that expansion at Heathrow is the best option.

He said the report had underestimated passenger growth at the West Sussex airport and was unrealistic in its assessment of the challenge of controlling levels of pollution at an enlarged Heathrow.

Mr Clarke, 70, a former non-executive director of the engineering group Weir, added: “If this was a decision being taken by the board of a commercial company, it seems unlikely that Heathrow would be chosen, as similar economic returns can be delivered at Gatwick for a lower capital cost, more quickly, and — on a range of parameters — at lower risk.”

The Government has indicated it will make a decision on which option to back by the end of the year with most commentators expecting that Heathrow will be favoured. But Stewart Wingate, chief executive of Gatwick Airport, said: “Introducing real competition between airports has been one of the great successes of recent industrial policy.

“If expansion at Gatwick is given the green light, the benefits of competition will reach even further.”

However, a Heathrow spokesman said: “The Airports Commission confirmed that Heathrow delivers ‘more substantial economic and social benefits than any other short-listed option’ ... a third runway would hand Britain a huge advantage in the global race for jobs and growth.”

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