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- Head of Division

- Deputy Director, Team Leader Planning, Infrastructure & Environment

Dear Sir/Madam,

Request for suspension and review of the Airports National Policy Statement

We write on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport in response to your letter dated 2 March.

You have asked that the Secretary of State provides a commitment that no development consent order (“DCO”)

application for the expansion of Heathrow Airport and other affected airports will be determined until after the

Secretary of State has considered requests to review the Airports National Policy Statement (“ANPS”). You have

also indicated in your letter of 16 February that it is essential that the Secretary of State considers your client’s

review request before a DCO application is made and decided on the basis of what your clients consider to be

an outdated policy statement.

We are instructed that the Department for Transport does not accept that your request for such a commitment

has any proper basis. We provide some context for how the DCO process operates below to substantiate this.

When a developer formally submits an application for development consent the Planning Inspectorate has a

period of up to 28 days to decide whether or not the application meets the standard required to be examined. If

it does meet that standard, the pre-examination stage commences, which takes approximately 3 months. The

Examining Authority then has a maximum of 6 months to carry out the examination, and submit its

recommendation to the Secretary of State within 3 months of the close of the examination. This timetable is set

out in the Planning Act 2008.

Therefore, if an applicant were to submit an application it could take approximately 13 months before it would

reach the Secretary of State for a decision to grant or refuse development consent. It is, of course, for Heathrow

Airport Limited to decide how and when it proceeds with its application. No application has, in fact, been submitted

by Heathrow Airport Limited.1 It is therefore quite clear that there is no prospect of a DCO application in relation

1 The Planning Inspectorate updates its website as an applicant moves forward in this process, the relevant webpage for

Heathrow Airport Limited’s application can be found at the following link, it is clear from this webpage that no

Hausfield

12 Gough Square

London

EC4A3DW

By email:

Litigation Group

102 Petty France

London

SW1H9AJ

T

DX 123242 Kingsway 6 www.gov.uk/gld

Our ref:

16 March 2021

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to Heathrow expansion being determined by the Secretary of State imminently. Your request is accordingly

baseless.

Further, to the extent that your request is, in substance, one to suspend the ANPS, that consideration is closely

tied up with that of whether or not to review the ANPS, as the overlap between sections 11 and 6 of the Planning

Act 2008 makes clear. Therefore, as per our previous correspondence, that question will fall to be considered in

line with any consideration of outstanding requests for the review of the ANPS.

Yours sincerely

For the Treasury Solicitor

D

E

application has been submitted: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/projects/london/expansion‐of‐

heathrow‐airport‐third‐runway/?ipcsection=overview#