Why risk messing the runway at Gatwick when there's other long runways in the country such as Brize Norton. In the time she circled and burnt of fuel and liquors no doubt a considerable contingent of emergency services could have been stationed there by the time she landed without any disruption to travelers.
With all the RAF's eggs in southern England now being placed very firmly in the Brize Norton basket (following the closure of Lyneham) and its 10,007ft (3050m) length being long enough for most eventualities why can't its firefighting capability just be uprated from the current Cat 8 to Cat 10 or FAA Cat E. This then makes it good enough to handle even an A380 incident.
Even as it turned out this was Christmas week so a significant number of completely full Easyjet flights will have been completely cancelled (short turnaround gives little other option on one hour or less duration flights) and those displaced passengers will find it very difficult to get seats on anything else. But if the worst had happened the airport could easily have been closed for at least 1 to 2 weeks.
So why on earth take the risk, especially when Gatwick is also a long haul hub where the consequences for passengers of prolonged closure are usually much more severe (i.e can't drive or get a train or coach instead).
If this incident had turned out badly that very question would have been asked big time far and wide and especially in Parliament. So even though it didn't turn out badly this time I still ask why on earth not spend the small amount of money to raise Brize Norton's crash capability to 10/E including the possible laying of foam on the runway (which in any 1970s film depictions I watched of what would probably happen with a fictional aircraft with a failed under carriage always seemed to be the only conceivable way of handling this situation).
Instead Gatwick might have had to close down for weeks just so that Captain didn't have to get a taxi back home to Gatwick and/or so that Virgin's operational costs in repairing the aircraft would be significantly lower (assuming that is that Easyjet, Norwegian, BA etc don't all fire compensation suits against Virgin).