On the 8th December 2025, the Judge presiding over the Judicial Review brought by LADACAN on behalf of all the Luton Airport Expansion opposition groups, ruled that the Secretary of States decision was a Legal Decision.
The reasonings behind that Decision, can be found on the first link at the end of this article should the reader wish to read those papers in full.
The LADACAN case involved six issues, including that carbon emissions from the development were not properly assessed, and that the regime governing them was inadequate. The Judge, appeared to err towards a Decision that allowed The Secretary of State more leeway than appropriate, in making this a qualitive judgement, rather than evidencing it against the latest available science and reports.
What happens next is unclear, though LADACAN are considering taking a case to the Court of Appeal, and If you should wish to support this appeal, and read a fuller report from LADACAN, please see the second link at the end of this article. However, what this means for Luton Rising (LR), and its owner Luton Borough Council (LBC), is now abundantly clear. LR must now deliver this expansion and provide the thousands of well paid, highly skilled job opportunities for the local population.
They must now deliver this Expansion at the best possible cost price, so that they can provide the multi millions of pounds of income for LBC and enable them to eradicate poverty in the town by 2040, the Keystone aim of this Expansion Plan. They must not, in any circumstances, follow the same philosophy they used whilst building the DART Transfer Link — that budgets are there to be broken to deliver the Project, irrespective of the facts of what that overspend could have achieved if it had been spent on LBC services, rather than transiting airport passengers.
They must ensure that the Green Controlled Growth (GCG) red lines that must be met to trigger aircraft and passenger growth, must be just that, cast iron guarantees. They must not continually fudge and change the goalposts on those limits. The indecent growth at all costs policy we have seen over the past 10 years, purely to increase profits to the Airport Operator, will have to be stopped under the GCG Policy, and an ethical and moral code now followed.
Why do we only mention profits of the Airport Operator?
Well, because since 2018/19, LR has stopped paying its yearly dividend to LBC, from the Concession Fee it receives each year from the Airport Operator based on passenger and cargo throughputs. It has kept all that money to itself, to service the interest on its loan stream from LBC, including the staggeringly negative equity DART, and to pay for the extremely expensive Development Consent Order process and to pay its ever-growing staff wage costs.
So, whilst this Decision is very sad for Wigmore Valley Park, and all those inhabitants blighted by this proposed Expansion, it will also cause anxiety within LR and LBC. For they must deliver on the promises and not just trot out excuses.