LADACAN has been granted a hearing at the Court of Appeal in May this year, where we will seek to overturn the High Court judgment last December that upheld the Secretary of State’s decision to permit near-doubling of capacity at Luton Airport. Why are we doing this, and how can you help?
Capacity at Luton Airport doubled rapidly from 9 to 18 million passengers a year between 2012 and 2019. Incentivisation by the airport owner to deliver this growth failed to take account of statutory noise conditions. The noise footprint limit was breached for three years running, before being knocked back by the pandemic. In 2026 we expect the busiest-ever throughput of 18 million passengers per annum to be reached again. This significantly adds to the loading on the M1 and other local roads, as well as rail services.
Luton Rising, the Borough Council’s airport-owning company, has targeted 36 million passengers a year since 2012. An initial £60m was sunk in consultants’ fees to propose a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project involving the building of a second terminal and car-parks on Wigmore Valley Park (a county wildlife site), with more aircraft stands and taxiways to increase the rate at which flights and passengers could be processed.
The proposal was opposed by many local Councils and groups, and after a 6-month examination, National Planning Inspectors recommended rejecting further expansion because of the impact on quality of life from the noise of 50% more flights per day and 70% more at night; on the environment due to emissions from 70,000 more flights a year; and on already crowded local surface transport. This recommendation was overturned by the Secretary of State in April 2025 on grounds of claimed economic benefits. These claims are poorly evidenced – particularly given the rising costs of damage caused by climate change.
LADACAN opposed this decision in a Judicial Review at the High Court, supported by other local airport and environmental campaign groups, town and parish councils or societies, and over 1,000 individual donors. Despite our legal team cogently arguing there were legal errors in the government’s decision-making, the High Court judge rejected those grounds. We believe this judgment was flawed, creating “messy law” where precedent from key cases relating to the assessment of greenhouse gas emissions becomes blurred. This could muddle decision-making for future airport expansions, when there is increasing concern about the risks of unfettered air travel without proven pathways to decarbonising aviation.
Our grounds for appeal are:
– that the Judge erred in concluding that the climate impact of the greenhouse gas emissions had been assessed, whereas they hadn’t been because of a faulty justification based on double-counting;
– that the Judge erred in concluding that the emissions from inbound flights had been assessed, despite asserting that meaningful assessment was not possible;
– that the Judge erred in concluding that the assessment of non-CO2 effects was lawful; and
– that the Judge erred in concluding that the Government’s duties under the Climate Change Act amounted to a pollution control regime.
If you are concerned about massive further expansion of Luton Airport, do please visit our crowdfunding page and make a donation towards our legal costs.