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An airport scene showing multiple airplanes parked at gates, including a Yanair flight, and ground service vehicles assisting with luggage at a busy terminal.
Case Studies

How we helped London Gatwick unlock the potential of its existing assets to secure consent to bring into routine use its existing northern runway

21 August, 2025

At a glance

London Gatwick Airport is the busiest single runway airport in the world, with a large amount of air traffic going through its existing main runway. 

The Northern Runway Project meets government planning policy by making the best use of their existing assets. Enabling the northern runway to become fully operational will allow the capacity of the airport to grow to about 80 million passengers a year (today capacity is c44m pax).
 
The physical work includes moving the northern runway by 12 metres, adding extra airfield and terminal infrastructure, and carrying out road improvements through the Development Consent Order (DCO)  process.

London Gatwick Airport is the busiest single runway airport in the world, with large amount of air traffic going through its existing main runway. The airport also has an emergency (northern) runway which can be used if the main runway is unavailable for any reason.

 

Dalcour Maclaren’s involvement

  1. Land referencing - land referencing a vast number of directly and potentially impacted land and property, including data capture through our portal and ESRI
  2. Land Assembly & Land Access – land negotiations with commercial, residential and leisure freeholders and leaseholders, as well as securing voluntary access for early works and environmental surveys
  3. Consenting and compulsory acquisition strategy – beginning-to-end advice and support through pre-examination and examination phases, working in collaboration with the client and a number of other consultants including planning, environmental and legal representatives

 

We Challenge
While the airside boundary for the runway didn’t change as a result of this project, significant road improvements were proposed along with land required for mitigation purposes. This required us to secure land via agreement or through CA powers if granted by the DCO, which can sometimes feel like an impersonal process for the landowners involved.

We worked hard to manage any opposition from local landowners, acting with empathy and understanding to come up with reasonable suggestions, while undertaking consultation and negotiation on behalf of the client. This allowed us to get many agreements in place during the process and minimising risk to Project delivery.

We Innovate
As a Nationally Significant Infrastructure (NSIP) project, interactions and negotiations with stakeholders and interested parties were complex. Stakeholders included Network Rail, National Highways, utility companies, a range of businesses including cargo facilities and hotels, and all the usual businesses you expect to see as you walk through an airport terminal.

We worked dynamically as a project team, making amendments and continuing negotiations well into the examination period with some of our key stakeholders. This ensured that we came to reasonable and fair agreements with all landowners and statutory undertakers.

We Care
We always advise our clients to undertake high quality consultation and stakeholder engagement at every stage - throughout pre-examination, during examination and post-examination. We were hugely supportive of Gatwick Airport’s desire to be a good neighbour and have a positive impact on the area.
We provide open, honest engagement with all affected parties, going above and beyond our statutory obligation – not just for the good of the project but also for the good of the local community.

The Dalcour Maclaren team has provided a great quality of land assembly advice through the pre-examination and examination period of the project, helping to deliver landowner consultation and add value to our project team. ”

Aiding sensitive airport expansion
Airport expansion projects can be contentious, but the Northern Runway Project shows how existing assets can be used to increase the capacity and resilience at one of the Europe's busiest airports. The land assembly and acquisition work we did was a vital step in improving and futureproofing the road infrastructure to support the additional passenger numbers and increase in cargo delivered by the Project.