After half a century in limbo, the federal government says it will scrap plans to build an airport on thousands of acres in Pickering, Ont., and instead look to transfer the land to Parks Canada.
The government acquired the land northeast of Toronto for an airport in 1972 but put those plans on hold three years later in favour of expanding Ontario’s already-built airports.
In the past decade, the government has transferred more than half the land to Parks Canada for the creation and then the expansion of Rouge National Urban Park.
But Transport Canada was still hanging on to about 3,500 hectares of the land for a potential future airport.
Transport Minister Anita Anand said in a release that the government determined that a new airport “is not the best use” of the federal Pickering lands.
The government says consultations will be held with the public and Indigenous communities, along with the residential, farm and commercial tenants who have since leased the federal lands.
Heathrow
Meanwhile, Britain’s government is backing a contentious third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport. Treasury chief Rachel Reeves says another runway at the UK’s main airport will bolster the country’s long-term economic growth potential by boosting investment, increasing exports, and making the UK more open and more connected to the rest of the world.
“We cannot duck the decision any longer,” she said. “The case is stronger than ever.”
Reeves said the government was inviting proposals over its construction by the summer and that it would then make a full assessment of the pros and cons of expanding Heathrow.
For decades, campaigners have opposed a third runway on environmental concerns and Reeves’ announcement will likely face vociferous opposition from campaigning groups, such as Greenpeace and Just Stop Oil, and from numerous fellow members of the Labour Party, including Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
Khan confirmed that he remained opposed to a new runway because of the “severe impact it will have on noise, air pollution and meeting our climate change targets.”
A third runway at Heathrow has been discussed since 1946 in the aftermath of World War II, but has never got off the ground because of many reasons, including changes of government as well as legal challenges. Meanwhile, other European hub airports, have grown. Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport has four runways, while Amsterdam’s Schiphol has six.
Heathrow’s plan to build a third runway received parliamentary approval in June 2018 but has been delayed by legal challenges and would require more than 700 houses to be demolished and sections of the M25 motorway, which encircles London, to be moved into a tunnel.
The business world has long supported the creation of a third runway at Heathrow, which is operating at near full capacity, which often means planes circling the capital before they can land.
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