Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

This is in line with Business Weekly's prediction in a January 18 article.

The additional land required for the development has also been reduced - to 486 hectares, compared to the original Government figure of 700 hectares.

Bosses on the project attribute the drop in expense to extensive consultation and significant work progress made by BAA, particularly in recent months.

Terry Morgan, BAA Stansted’s Managing Director, said: “Stansted is vitally important to the £100 billion regional economy in the East of England and it is even more important that it plays its role in helping to maintain London as a premier world gateway of which we can all be proud."

Among the revisions made to the proposal are a shortened runway, closer to the existing runway than originally planned, which leaves 50 per cent of the airport's existing land boundaries in tact.

The number of homes to be affected has been reduced from over 100 to 73, with an additional 19 homes to be eligible to apply for help under the Home Owner Support Scheme (HOSS), with those located within the original boundary still able to participate.

Next month will see a consultation on the surface access arrangements to support a two-runway Stansted, asking for views on the upgrading of rail services to the airport. The implications for the M11 motorway, trunk roads in the area and proposals for the closing or diversion of local roads, footpaths and bridleways will be addressed.

Despite the reductions in cost and environmental impact, opposition to a second runway remains fierce.

Commenting on the plans, Ryanair's CEO Michael O’Leary, said:

"This £2.2bn Taj Mahal is opposed by Stansted’s airlines, its passengers and the local community.

"This will lead to a doubling of the already high passenger charges at Stansted and will be a double whammy for British passengers and visitors on top of greedy Gordon Brown’s £10 airport tax, which starts on Thursday.

"The second runway and terminal plans submitted by the airlines would cost less than half the monies proposed by the BAA monopoly and do away with an increase in passenger charges."

According to O'Leary, "a low cost efficient airport like Frankfurt Hahn can design and build a 15M passenger terminal for less than €100m, there is no justification for the BAA airport monopoly to waste £1.4bn. on a similar sized terminal facility."

Peter Sanders, chairman of Stop Stansted Expansion said: "Ferrovial is still trying to play yesterday's game with the imperative of capitalising on the growth in cheap leisure flights. However, today's imperative for the rest of us is to combat climate change.

"This does not yet seem to have dawned on BAA's new owner who wants to go on making the problem worse regardless of the environmental impacts. This is the unacceptable face of capitalism complete with sombrero."

Some other key elements of the development proposal:

• The two runways to be operated in ‘segregated mode’ which means one runway for landings and the other for take-offs.

• Forecast throughput for a two-runway Stansted in 2030 will be 68 million passengers a year;

• There will be a phased approach to the development. At the time of opening - estimated to be 2015 - the development will accommodate an extra 10 million passengers a year