Climate change activists have railed against the government's provisional thumbs-up, which came just a few weeks after it gave its full backing to the construction of a third runway at London's Heathrow Airport, the country's busiest, as part of its drive to bolster the U.K.'s anemic economic growth over recent years.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said in a written statement that she was "minded to approve” the expansion, which would involve moderately moving Gatwick's northern runway, which is currently only used for planes to taxi or as a backup.
The U.K. government on Thursday provided provisional approval to the creation of a second runway at Gatwick Airport outside London if certain improvements to the plan were met, including on noise reduction.
“Such a decision would be one that smacks of desperation, completely ignoring the solid evidence that increasing air travel won’t drive economic growth,” said Greenpeace U.K.’s policy director, Doug Parr.
Gatwick, which is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of London and serves more than 40 million passengers a year, is the country's busiest single-runway airport.
