Stansted Airport refuses £1.4m costs offer from Uttlesford Council and asks for £2.2m
Stansted Airport has rejected Uttlesford District Council’s offer of £1.4million to cover its legal costs for an appeal over its plan for expansion to 43m passengers a year. The airport has instead made a counter-offer of £2.2m to Uttlesford. The council was ordered to pay the airport’s legal costs after it lost an appeal against the airport’s plan in May 2021. It voted to offer the airport £1.4m, including £1m paid on account. According to the report, Stansted’s counter-offer also includes the £1m already paid on account, but not legal costs associated with the settlement negotiations. Councillors will meet on 11th October to vote on a revised offer to the airport of £2.05m. According to the report, this would consist of £2m in respect of the claim for costs itself and £50,000 of interest. It could also make a second “all-in” offer of £2.1m, which would include all interest and costs incurred by Stansted Airport in negotiating the settlement. It is wrong that a local council should have to pay so much of its taxpayers’ money, to try to defend its residents against negative impacts of a large company. And that councils are then too afraid to challenge. Uttlesford will then have far less money with which to provide services to residents.
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Stansted Airport refuses £1.4m costs offer and asks for £2.2m
By Charlie Ridler, Local Democracy Reporter (Safron Walden Reporter)
October 5th, 2022
Stansted Airport has rejected Uttlesford District Council’s offer of £1.4million to cover its legal costs for an appeal over its expansion to 43m passengers a year.
The airport has instead made a counter-offer of £2.2m to Uttlesford District Council, according to a council report.
The council was ordered to pay the airport’s legal costs after it lost an appeal against the increase in passenger numbers last year. In June, it voted to offer the airport £1.4m, including £1m paid on account.
According to the report, Stansted’s counter-offer also includes the £1m already paid on account, but not legal costs associated with the settlement negotiations.
Councillors will now meet next week (October 11) to vote on a revised offer to the airport of £2.05m. According to the report, this would consist of £2m in respect of the claim for costs itself and £50,000 of interest.
It could also make a second “all-in” offer of £2.1m, which would include all interest and costs incurred by Stansted Airport in negotiating the settlement, the report continues.
According to the report, these new offers have been supported by advice from the council’s costs lawyer, who also advised the previous offer.Stansted Airport refuses £1.4m costs offer and asks for £2.2m
A section read: “The Council has a fiduciary duty to the taxpayer for the effective and economic use of their money. It has a duty to demonstrate and act in good faith in its negotiations.”
However, the bill could now wipe the council’s Strategic Initiative Fund, which had a balance of £1.65m before the £1m was paid on account in June.
According to the report, the Medium Term Financial Strategy Reserve would be used for the excess of £437,000. If the airport rejects these offers, the settlement could be dealt with through mediation.
As with the previous offer, the new offer would be made under Part 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules, which gives some legal protection to the council should the matter have to be decided in court.
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See earlier:
Uttlesford Council applies for judicial review of Stansted airport expansion plans
In May, the Planning Inspectorate (PI) approved plans by Stansted airport to expand its maximum number of annual passengers from 35 to 43 million. This had been opposed by Uttlesford Council, but the decision was challenged by the airport. Now Uttlesford District Council UDC) is trying to get this PI decision reversed, as it goes against the decision by a democratically elected council. UDC submitted its application to the court for a JR one day before its submission deadline tomorrow, and the UDC leader John Lodge said the decision to apply for Judicial Review was taken after seeking legal advice. Local campaign, Stansted Airport Watch, had asked for a JR, so the decision is taken by the Secretary of State for Transport, not the PI. Since the PI decision, the government enshrined a new “Carbon Budget” into legislation. The Sixth Carbon Budget now aims to cut emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels, and for the first time, the carbon emissions of international aviation will be included in UK totals. That should mean the collective increases in carbon of all the airport expansion plans will have to be considered together, and none of the airports seeking expansion should be considered in isolation.
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Uttlesford District Council leader calls for Government to intervene on Stansted Airport Expansion
The leader of Uttlesford District Council (UDC), Cllr John Lodge, has condemned the Planning Inspectorate’s (PI) decision to allow expansion at Stansted as “an insult to local democracy”. He has written to the Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps and his Housing, Communities and Local Government counterpart Robert Jenrick and urged them to intervene. The application was rejected by UDC councillors, but the airport appealed – and the PI recently approved it – going against the democratic council vote. John Lodge called on the Government to commit to “aviation demand management” to prevent the implementation of the planning permission at the airport, to raise the cap on annual passengers, from 35 to 43 million over the next 10 to 15 years. The PI considered the behaviour of the council to have been unreasonable, as officers had recommended approval. The PI also said costs should be awarded against UDC. The decision to let the number of flights and passengers increase is completely contrary to government’s stated seriousness about cutting CO2 emissions. The owners of the airport, the Manchester Airports Group, are mainly councils. So money will be taken by one council, UDC (not a rich council), to be paid to other councils.
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Unreasonable behaviour
“Unreasonable behaviour”: these were the words used by the Panel of Planning Inspectors to describe the conduct of Uttlesford District Council (UDC) in their formal ruling, dated 26 May, which approved an increase in Stansted Airport’s planning cap from 35 million to 43 million passengers per annum (‘mppa’). This followed a Public Inquiry which ran from 12 January to 12 March 2021, involving three main parties, namely UDC, Manchester Airports Group (MAG) and Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE). (Note that SSE has since been succeeded by Stansted Airport Watch (SAW). Commenting on the outcome of the Public Inquiry, SAW Chairman Brian Ross, said: “We are, of course, disappointed but we are not at all surprised, bearing in mind that the Council’s planning officers made no real attempt to defend the decision of their own Planning Committee. We will carefully review the Panel’s ruling and discuss with our legal advisers before deciding whether to seek leave to appeal.” The approval comes despite UDC’s Planning Committee having last year voted unanimously to refuse MAG’s application for further expansion of Stansted.
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Stansted wins appeal, against refusal by Uttlesford Council, of its plans to increase capacity to 43 million passengers per year
Expansion plans for Stansted Airport have been approved by the Planning Inspectorate (PI) after an appeal. In January 2020 Uttlesford District Council (UDC) rejected proposals to increase Stansted’s passenger cap from 35 million to 43 million a year. However, the councillors voted against the advice of council officers, who had recommended approval of proposals. The council had originally approved the plan, in November 2018 but only by the casting vote of the chairman; many councillors then had not read, or properly understood, all the documents. Then after the Residents for Uttlesford group took control from the Conservatives in May 2019, the decision was referred back to the planning committee – the rejection decision. Stansted already had permission to increase capacity from 28 million to 35 million passengers per year. The airport appealed against the decision, despite Covid and the near collapse of air travel in 2020. A public inquiry was held in January to March 2021 by the Planning Inspectorate. In its decision, the PI said: “there would be a limited degree of harm arising in respect of air quality and carbon emissions” but that was “far outweighed by the benefits of the proposal”. UDC has also been ordered to pay the costs of Stansted’s appeal.
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DfT and MHCLG both reject application to have Stansted expansion called in
There was a Planning Inquiry from January to March, into the rejection by Uttlesford council of the application by Stansted airport to increase its annual air passenger cap from 35 million passengers, to 43 mppa. Local campaign, Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) asked the government (two departments) to call in the application, for consideration by government, rather than just by Uttlesford District Council. Now SSE has received letters from both the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Transport, refusing the request for a call in. The MHCLG said “the Secretary of State has carefully considered your request but has decided in this case not to issue a direction for joint determination under s266 of the 1990 Act. The jurisdiction of the case therefore remains with the appointed planning Inspectors, and the Planning Inspectorate will inform you of a decision in due course.” Grant Shapps (DfT) said that “the application is not of sufficient scale or significance to justify a direction. I will therefore not be making a direction in relation to this appeal.” SSE said they were unsurprised, and concerned that this may set a bad precedent for appeals by other airports, where the planned increase in annual passengers is lower than that at Stansted.
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