London’s Airports have been a subject of much debate over the years. With plans for Expansion raised every few years or proposals for new sites e.g. the recent ideas promoted for a site in the Thames Estuary. The government is now supporting moves to expand Heathrow and probbaly in the near future Heathrow. The Government has also recently supported more flights at London City Airport.
Currently London has one two runway airport at Heathrow with Luton, Stanstead, and Gatwick spread around the capital with single runways. In addition there is City airport in London docklands which has one short runway. There are thus 6 runways serving the London area. As a comparison Schiphol and Charles de Gaulle have 5 and 4 main runways.
The long running plan to add a 3rd runway plus terminal facilities to the north of the airport has been given added impetus by the support of the Government recently. Schemes for Heathrow have come and gone over many decades. Any plans to expand are approved are likely to be subject to a lengthy planning process, any start of building is likely to be in the 2030’s
It should be noted that Heathrow is the largest port in the UK for freight by value. HS/2 rail link was also approved, in part, to allow easy access to Birmingham Airport – never much discussed these days. HS/2 will have a journey time of 38mins to the west London area.
London Gatwick is proposing to convert a short emergency runway into a small full runway suitable for short haul aircraft e.g. Airbus A320’s. This is a far cheaper scheme than the Heathrow Scheme and almost entirely confined to the airport area with some interventions to improve road junctions.
Gatwick has become far more accessible recently by rail recently with the Thameslink service running to many destinations north of the capital and allowing interchange with mainline routes north of London.
The Scheme is due to be financed by Private Capital and will use existing flight paths.
The expansion will make the operation of Gatwick more robust.
New Runway at Gatwick (c) Gatwick Consultation
Air Traffic control is changing due to increasing use of GPS navigation and this will see some changes in flight paths. It is probably that Guildford Town will remain in an area of a low volume of overflights due to the town being situated between a number of Air Traffic Control areas.
Aircraft are getting quieter, we will see more use of SAF sustainable aviation fuel and by the time new runways are in operation we also seeing electric and hydrogen powered aircraft for short haul trips.
The airport debate has an impact on Guildford, although it apears limited as far as noise is concerned there could be impacts in the following areas:
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