Expansion plans timeline
crackling jet,
My understanding is that the major expansion plans are of a type that must be notified to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (currently Eric Pickles) when a local authority is minded to approve them.
The secretary of state has 21 days to respond to the local authority and can either tell it he will not intervene or, alternatively, call in the planning application in which case a public enquiry would be held presided over by a planning inspector who would ultimately make recommendations to the secretary of state.
It sounds a very quick way to get a decision as to whether planning applications will be called in.
Unfortunately, there is a snag. The secretary of state may feel he needs more time to decide whether to intervene in which case he can issue a holding notice to the local authority which in effect gives him as much time as he likes to decide on his course of action.
This seems to be what has happened with the airport application. Perhaps someone should jog the secretary of state's memory or the plans might be going yellow and gathering dust in a filing cabinet until the next general election.
I believe the hotel planning application is a separate one with no need for it to be formally notified to the secretary of state.