UK urged to do more to tackle impact of Heathrow expansion

Bloomberg

The UK government is failing to show how it intends to tackle the potential environmental damage of building a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport, according to a cross-party panel of lawmakers.
Ministers are relying too much on people switching to cleaner cars to reduce particulate air pollution and have given no guarantees on air-quality targets after the U.K. leaves the European Union, Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee said in a report on Thursday.
It said measures to tackle noise pollution “lack ambition” and criticized the government for providing “scant details” about its efforts to rein in carbon emissions from aviation.
“Mitigating the air quality, carbon and noise impacts of a new runway cannot be an afterthought,” Committee Chairwoman Mary Creagh said in a statement. “Ministers must work harder to show that Heathrow expansion can be done within the UK’s legally binding environmental
commitments.”
In a statement, the Department for Transport insisted the government is taking its air-quality commitments extremely seriously, saying the new runway will not get the final go-ahead unless they can be met.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s government gave the green light to Heathrow expansionin October, ending years of debate over whether and where to build extra runways to serve London. The decision was taken in the face of opposition from London Mayor Sadiq Khan and his predecessor, Boris Johnson, and despite at least one road near the hub already breaching EU air-pollution limits.
The European Commission issued a “final warning” to the U.K. this month over air-pollution breaches that are blamed for 40,000 premature deaths each year. Ministers aim to prepare a new air-quality strategy by July after losing a legal challenge to their existing plans in November.