You would think the Competition Commission might be concerned re Cargo, Barling Magna...aren't EMA, STN and MAG the 1,2,3 in the UK for cargo traffic? And given the importance of airfreight to the UK eceonomy....but maybe cargo just doesn't get people excited the way passenger traffic does..
LHR is the biggest cargo airport in the UK - it handled more airfreight than all the rest of the UK airports put together. Without doing the accurate sums it is over 60%. EMA is second, STN 3rd and MAN 4th with LGW 5th using the CAA 2011 annual statistics. MAN was below 100,000 tones in 2012 not sure of the other figures.
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/80/airport..._2001_2011.pdf
As far as the Competition Authorities getting involved, I'm sure that MAG would have checked this position with them as part of compiling the bid.