London Gatwick have given the Government a ‘pathway forward to approve’ £2.2bn Northern Runway plans, says out-going CEO

Secretary of State for Transport Heidi Alexander said in February that she was ‘minded to approve’ the plans, provided certain conditions related to noise and public transport are met.

And after the release of London Gatwick’s interim financial results, Mr Wingate told SussexWorld he is optimistic for an optimistic outcome when the final decision is made, which is expected by October 27.

The Northern Runway project will see the current emergency runway brought into more routine use and it’s a project that has been in the works for seven years.

“We've worked very carefully for a long time on this project,” said Mr Wingate, “and we got the ‘minded

to’ decision in February time and there were a number of areas which we were asked to consider, really around some of the noise mitigations and also the levels of passengers getting to and from the airport by public transport and staff.

“We put submissions back to the government where we've addressed those concerns and our strong contention is that we've given the government a pathway forward now for them to approve this project but what we have made clear to the government as we've made our responses, is that it's incredibly important to us as the developer that any permission that's granted has planning conditions that at the end of the day are sufficient to enable us to go ahead and make the investment because after all it's a £2.2billion investment which will be entirely privately financed.

“It's very important to us that we get permission with investable conditions.

“We think we've given the government a route forward on that and the responses that we've given to them they've now consulted on answers and if they make the right decision, which we're optimistic that they will, that'll create an additional 14 000 new jobs and put another billion pounds into the economy every year going forwards.”

The airport’s financial results showed an increase in revenue and passenger numbers in the first half of this year. They also showed more airlines - 58 - are flying from Gatwick than ever before and the airport’s chief financial officer Jim Butler says that will only grow if the plans get the green light.

“We're excited that we still have airlines growing here but overall when we're able to use that new runway we'll see revenues grow at a level we haven't seen a long time.

“I think the other thing that the runway gives us is more resilience so we'll continue to be able to see increased on-time performance to the likes of which we've seen over the past six months. It’s also the flexibility that it brings and the ability that it brings to continue to expand the network.”

And Mr Wingate added the impact it will have on the whole region. “It's also game changing for the region,” he said. “We'll be able to attract more airlines, more routes, more choice and have more competition which can only be a good thing for passengers and businesses in this region.”

Mr Butler added: “Looking from a regional perspective, just one of the things I've highlighted over the past year is that we've gone out twice and actually expanded to the European bond market as we start to build confidence in the investor community and the investor community is incredibly confident in the forward plans of Gatwick.

“We've just gone out with our second sustainability linked bond that brought in again €750 million that we can turn into investment and I was really pleased the confidence that we heard from the investor community and we saw in their ability to invest funds in Gatwick.”