Stop Stansted Expansion challenge to Airports Commission on apparent bias going to High Court on Friday 22nd Nov
Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) will go to the Royal Courts of Justice on Friday 22 November to present its case that a key element of the work carried out by the Airports Commission has been tainted by apparent bias and needs to be done afresh. SSE’s legal challenge stems from the involvement of Geoff Muirhead, who was appointed to the Airports Commission. He had retired as MAG’s chief executive in October 2010 after 22 years with the Group but he was then immediately appointed as their highly paid ambassador, a role he continued to fulfil even after he was appointed to the Commission. Mr Muirhead resigned from the Commission on 20 September 2013, shortly after SSE began its legal challenge. He was directly involved in determining the Commission’s ‘sift criteria’ for deciding the most suitable airport expansion options and SSE believes that these are clearly skewed to favour expansion at Stansted. SSE will be asking the High Court to order the Commission to re-determine the ‘sift criteria’ and to delay the publication of any short-list of options until the sift criteria have been re-determined.
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JUDGE OUSELEY TO HEAR SSE’S HIGH COURT CHALLENGE
18.11.2013 (SSE)
Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) will go to the Royal Courts of Justice on Friday 22 November 2013 at 10.00am to present its case that a key element of the work carried out by the Airports Commission has been tainted by apparent bias and needs to be done afresh.
The Honourable Mr Justice Ouseley will hear the case.
SSE’s legal challenge stems from the involvement of Geoff Muirhead, former chief executive of the Manchester Airports Group (MAG), which owns Stansted Airport. Mr Muirhead was one of five commissioners appointed to the Airports Commission last year. He had retired as MAG’s chief executive in October 2010 after 22 years with the Group but he was then immediately appointed as a highly paid ambassador to MAG, a role he continued to fulfil even after he was appointed to the Airports Commission.
Mr Muirhead resigned from the Commission on 20 September 2013, “by mutual consent” with the Secretary of State for Transport, shortly after SSE began its legal challenge.
Mr Muirhead was directly involved in determining the Commission’s ‘sift criteria’. These are, in effect, the selection criteria for deciding the most suitable airport expansion options and SSE believes that these are clearly skewed to favour expansion at Stansted Airport.
SSE will be asking the High Court to order the Commission to re-determine the ‘sift criteria’ for assessing airport expansion options and to delay the publication of any short-list of options – due to be published next month – until the sift criteria have been re-determined.
SSE Chairman Peter Sanders said: “We first expressed our concern about Mr Muirhead’s role on the Commission on 4 February 2013, and subsequently sent a further five letters to the Chairman of the Commission and the Secretary of State re-iterating our concerns. All of this was completely ignored until we began our legal challenge but by that time Mr Muirhead’s involvement had tainted the work of the Commission. That is why it is not enough just to remove Mr Muirhead from the Commission at this advanced stage and that is why we will be asking the High Court to order the Commission to re-visit certain key decisions made by the Commission during the time that Mr Muirhead was involved.”
Mr Sanders concluded: “This is a fight for fairness and with proposals before the Airports Commission to make Stansted the world’s biggest airport, it is a fight that we cannot shirk.”
NOTES
· MAG has asked the Airports Commission to endorse the development of a second runway at Stansted and also to consider the option of Stansted becoming the UK’s future hub airport, to replace Heathrow and grow to handle up to 160 million passengers per annum (mppa). By way of comparison, Stansted handled 17.5 mppa last year, Heathrow 70 mppa, and the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta, USA, 95 mppa.
· Mr Muirhead was paid £82,000 in his first six months as MAG’s ‘ambassador’ and subsequently received consultancy fees of £150,000 per annum, in addition to his £95,000 annual pension.
· Acting for SSE in this matter are barristers Paul Stinchcombe QC and Ned Helme of Thirty Nine Essex Street Chambers and solicitors Richard Stein and Ugo Hayter of Leigh Day LLP.
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Earlier:
Stop Stansted Expansion lodged papers at High Court alleging Airports Commission criteria “infected by apparent bias” due to Geoff Muirhead
October 15, 2013 The Stop Stansted Expansion group (SSE) have lodged papers at the Royal Courts of Justice alleging that the criteria being applied to decide on possible options for new runway sites in England are “infected by apparent bias”. SSE want High Court judges to order the Government-appointed Airports Commission to delay the publication of any shortlist of options until the “sift criteria” have been re-determined. They argue that there was apparent bias because Geoff Muirhead, a recently-resigned member of the Commission, had a conflict of interest. Mr Muirhead is a former chief executive of Manchester Airports Group (MAG), the owners of Stansted since February. He stepped down from the Commission three weeks ago after SSE warned Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin they would take legal action if he stayed. “For almost a year, Mr Muirhead was allowed to play a pivotal role on the Commission.” The High Court is being asked to order the Commission “to re-visit certain key decisions made by the Commission during the time that Mr Muirhead was involved”. Brian Ross, from SSE, said: “With proposals on the table from MAG to make Stansted the world’s busiest airport with four runways handling up to 160 million passengers a year, there is far too much at stake to allow the issue of apparent bias to go unchallenged.” Click here to view full story…
Stop Stansted Expansion says of the Airports Commission: A tainted process – a dubious conclusion
October 9, 2013 Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) is disappointed that the Airports Commission has formed the preliminary view that extra runway capacity is needed in the south east of England. In his speech on 7th October 2013, the chairman of the Airports Commission, Sir Howard Davies said that his Commission had not been persuaded by the arguments against expansion. In SSE’s view, the arguments for more runway capacity in the south east are dangerously weak and they will be taking up Sir Howard’s invitation to comment on his preliminary conclusions. SSE believes the UK, as a whole, already has more than enough runway capacity to meet the DfT forecasts to 2050, and well beyond. Regarding the recent resignation of Geoff Muirhead from the Commission, due to ties with MAG, SSE said they are mounting a legal challenge on bias – due to Mr Muirhead’s influence – in formulating the “sift criteria” and there will be more information on that next week. Click here to view full story…
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