CPRE Hertfordshire supports legal challenge of Luton Airport expansion

We’re working with the LADACAN campaign group and supporting their legal challenge of the Government’s recent approval of massive further expansion at Luton Airport. The approval comes despite the Government’s own Planning Inspectorate recommending the expansion be refused.

LADACAN has initiated the process of a Judicial Review into the Government’s decision to approve Luton Airport’s expansion and we are helping to fund the case. Can you help by making a donation towards our legal fund?

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Damaging impacts of Luton Airport expansion

The airport expansion will have a devastating impact on the environment and cause irreversible damage to the countryside. This includes severe harm to the nearby Chilterns National Landscape (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).

The expansion would destroy Wigmore Park, a local wildlife site and public green space, in order to build a new terminal and related facilities and add 77,000 more flights per year (including increasing night flights by 70%). Existing road and rail traffic congestion would increase by 15 million more passengers per year than in 2024, and overall capacity at Luton Airport would nearly double, to 32 million passengers per annum.

There will be massively increased noise and air pollution not just from the increase in flights but also from the increase in people travelling to and from the airport. Increased greenhouse gas emissions will worsen rather than mitigate the impacts of climate change. The impact will be felt over a wide swathe of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, affecting hundreds of thousands of local residents.

The damage and harm caused by this expansion will be terrible for local people and communities and terrible for the planet.

Judicial Review into Luton Airport expansion decision

The Government’s Planning Inspectorate conducted a 6 month public examination into Luton Airport’s application for expansion. They concluded the application should be refused due to the resulting greenhouse gas emissions, noise, environmental harms and local transport impacts.

The Secretary of State for Transport then overruled the Planning Inspectorate’s recommendation and granted consent for the expansion.

However, specialist legal advice has identified more than a dozen grounds for legal challenge into the Secretary of State’s decision. And this is why we are supporting the Judicial Review.

If you are concerned about climate change, the environment and the harmful impacts of Luton Airport expansion, please support our campaign and make a donation now.

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Luton Airport expansion is not inevitable

We were hugely dismayed by the Secretary of State’s decision to approve the expansion of Luton Airport. But it’s not over and this is not a done deal. There are meaningful and significant grounds for mounting a legal challenge and we will continue to fight on behalf of local people and the countryside.

CPRE Hertfordshire is the local countryside charity for Hertfordshire. We rely on membership subscriptions and donations to fund all of our work to protect the countryside for everyone to value and enjoy. Please join us and become a member – it’s easy and quick to join online.

We have had a long-running campaign opposing Luton Airport expansion. To read more of the background, see our previous posts.

Huge dismay as Government approves massive expansion of Luton airport, April 2025

Luton Airport Expansion impact – our 9-mile walk to raise awareness, November 2024

Our representation opposing Luton Airport’s massive expansion to 32 mppa, June 2023

Luton Airport expansion – Planning Inspectorate inviting representations, May 2023

Luton Airport submits new application for massive expansion, March 2023