At a recent London Luton Airport Consultative Committee meeting, attended by many Councils and airport pressure groups, STOPLAE asked about secret plans to expand the airport by an additional 4 million passengers. This would happen by building aprons and stands that would avoid a planning application going to government. Despite being pressed, Neil Thompson who is the LLAOL Ops Director denied there were any such plans.
We have now found out – just 3 weeks later – that there is a tender out to add eight additional stands.
Our view is that this statement made by LLAOL is complete nonsense, as this group has a full set of plans as submitted to Luton Borough Council in 2013 and 2016 so we know that the stands required for an 18 million passenger Luton Airport have been completed with the airport now operating just below that figure. As well as new stands, the terminal will need to be modified to add capacity by 4 million passengers.
A planning application has now been submitted to add an extra 1 million passengers that will be the first part of the plan to add 4 million passengers in stages that won’t need government permission.
Luton Borough Council, LLAL and LLAOL all strongly oppose our membership of LLACC. They feared the truth coming out, and their fears were well founded.
Below is the “Master Plan 2013” which has the same stand layout as the present stand layout, which is shown a the top of this page
