According to a report published in the Guardian, it appears that the EU has serious concerns regarding the development of a third runway at Heathrow, which it strongly feels would give way to a 'significant' breach of permitted air pollution limits. Based on a letter from European Commissioner Stavros Dimas, the newspaper says that he is most likely to contact the Government to express his serious concern over this issue that the plans will certainly lead to the airport missing nitrogen oxide targets imposed by the EU.
The letter from Mr Dimas reads thus, "Technical reports underpinning the Heathrow expansion suggest that nitrogen limit values near the airport will be significantly exceeded in 2010, the year in which those limit values become mandatory, and that this will be the case even after 2015.â
Notably, the above said news is a further blow to the proposed plans that have been put forward for constructing a third runway at the sixth terminal at the busiest international airport across the globe. Over and above, it also appears that a final decision on the said plans is likely to be taken before the end of this year following the review of more than 70,000 responses received by the government in response to its recent public consultation.
In fact, the government strongly maintains that the pollution limits are not likely to be breached 'significantly', with a claim that a small breach can be expected only in 2015 when the airport switches to so-called 'mixed-mode' flights that will witness continuous take-off and landing from the two runways existing at present.
