Hamish,
For a quality engineer, your posts lack any attention to detail; with many typo mistakes. Not much quality from you. Merely a rant!
When the Air Canada Rouge B767 returned, it's tyre-less wheel rim gouged a huge chunk out of the runway surface. Apparently so big you could lie in it! Gatwick Airport could have just left it for your daughter's easyJet flight to encounter later but, of course that would have been unsafe..
There are rules around bringing the back up and shorter Northern runway into use. Therefore, it is not available instantly. Unfortunately, one of the first departures on 08L was a Virgin Atlantic B744 which using higher thrust than normal on a shorter runway blasted and lifted a section of tarmac damaging the back up runway.
Nobody did anything wrong but, delays were inevitable. There were literally thousands of passengers inconvenienced with much longer delays than your precious daughter. In fact she got off lightly! Many flights had to be diverted and hundreds of delayed passengers at Gatwick spent the night in the airport; as all the hotels in the area became fully booked by those delayed. Some travelled as far as Brighton and Eastbourne for accommodation.
Perhaps your time could be better spent campaigning for a proper second runway at Gatwick Airport.
