Luton-9

[cj241101]

A bit of history

A long, long time ago, late 1960's, the local council commissioned a report into future airport expansion. Known as the Snow Report (LADACAN referred to it as more like a blizzard) the recommendation was for, amongst other things, a new north-south runway, along the line of what then was the 18/36 grass runway. This was before there was a Wigmore Park or the Wigmore housing estate. Nothing came of it, of course.
Meanwhile the government had commissioned another report into a site for the 3rd London airport. This was the Roskill Commission, who short-listed 4 sites at Wing (Bucks), Thurleigh (Bedford), Nuthampstead (SE of Royston) and Maplin Sands (Thames estuary). Neither Stansted nor Luton came into consideration. The commission reached their decision in January 1971 and their choice was for Wing, which would have meant the closure of Luton as it would have been too close to the flight paths for the new airport. Having spent a considerable amount of (taxpayers) money on this report, the government chose to ignore it and selected Maplin Sands instead. Luton was still earmarked for closure once this new airport was built. (I'm sure this had nothing to do with the then PM instructing aircraft from Luton routing via Beacon Hill - close to Chequers - be rerouted when he was in residence...)

Following the downturn in aviation after the oil crisis in 1973/74 the government abandoned plans to build at Maplin Sands and eventually plumped for Stansted, which made a lot more sense given much of the infrastructure was already in place. The axe that had hung over Luton was finally lifted in 1978. After many years of reports/public inquiries/objections etc. work finally began developing Stansted in 1986, with the new terminal open for business in 1991.

Since then, Luton Council has hatched various plans for airport development. I can remember seeing the model in the old airport admin building (the old Court Line ops), probably the mid-90's, of a proposed development which had a satellite terminal to the east or south east of the current CTA, possibly more in the direction of the engine run bay. Nothing came of that one. In 2002 the DFT published a report into the future of air transport in the south east, which proposed for Luton - amongst other options elsewhere - either a new runway aligned NE-SW (pointing close to Harpenden and straight at Hitchin) or a 2nd parallel runway and new terminal to the south. Still waiting on that one as well.

My personal opinion is that, if the airport is to expand then south is the only sensible option, just another terminal, forget the 2nd runway. New access roads would be needed and a separate DART link as per the Option 2 in the report. Yes it means going into Hertfordshire (I've corrected this - see further post) but surely if the government are to make the final decision then objections from a neighbouring county can be dealt with. Building to the north/east of the existing site is a bonkers idea IMHO. Go where there's space, don't try and cram even more people into an area, infrastructure and road system that is already bursting at the seams. 38 million passengers per year? Ouch!