Press Release - 2 September 2014

Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) welcomes the publication today of Stansted Airport's new long term plan, which it describes as its 'Sustainable Development Plan' (SDP) for Stansted. Importantly the plan is based on Stansted remaining as a single runway airport.

The SDP has been published as a draft for consultation and we believe there is considerable scope for constructive dialogue with the airport. SSE will be submitting a detailed response in due course. In the meantime SSE re-iterates the points made in its press release of 28 July – anticipating the new plan. In particular:

• It will be a great relief for the vast majority of local residents that Stansted's new long term plan is based on Stansted remaining as a single runway airport but this still leaves scope - within Stansted's existing planning permission - for the airport to handle twice as many passengers and twice as many flights as it does today.
• Stansted's current planning permission is for 35 million passengers per annum (mppa). Since this is only about 50% utilised at present, it would be premature to start considering anything above 35mppa on the existing runway.
• SSE would like to see a gradual phasing out of night flights at Stansted and this issue will be high on our agenda in the consultation on the SDP.
• Stansted Airport continues to own about 270 properties around the airport - acquired in connection with the now-aborted second runway plans. We would like to see these returned to private ownership.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

• The Stansted Airport SDP was originally due to be published at the end of July. It is not clear why there was a month's delay.
• Stansted handled 17.8 million passengers and 131,900 Air Transport Movements (ATMs) last year. It has planning consent for 35mppa and 264,000 ATMs. Stansted handled 24mppa in its peak year, 2006/07.
• SSE submitted evidence to the Airports Commission on 25 July 2014 in response to the Commission's Discussion Paper on 'Utilisation of the UK's Existing Airport Capacity'. Much of this SSE evidence is pertinent to the Stansted SDP - see SSE Paper here. This is SSE's eleventh evidence submission to the Commission - see SSE submissions here.