§ Lord Actonasked Her Majesty's Government:
When they expect to make a decision on the application to raise the passenger air transport movement limit at Stansted. [HL3058]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Lord Whitty)After careful consideration of BAA plc's application for an increase, and the responses to the consultation that was held on it, we have laid before the House an Order allowing 120,000 passenger air transport movements at Stansted between August 1999 and February 2000, and increasing, from 1 March 2000, the annual limit from 120.000 to 185,000 per annum. The new limit should allow Stansted to expand 65WA to around 15 million passengers a year (mppa)—a limit for which it has had outline planning permission since 1985 and for which detailed planning approval was given in March.
The purpose of the passenger air transport movement limit is to ensure that the development of Stansted does not outpace the ability of local infrastructure to cope with it. The Government are satisfied that the growth in road and rail traffic that will be generated will be satisfactorily accommodated, and that the overall effects of a 15 mppa airport are properly reflected in local development plans.