Gatwick's £2.2bn second runway plan gets green light

0:03Hi, it's Rachel Abbott and welcome back to The Standard Podcast.

0:30Fancy eating like an American mobster? The Standard's food and drinks journalist Josh Barry on Carbone at London's Chancery Rosewood Hotel.

0:45But first, Gatwick. It's the UK's second busiest airport and one of the busiest single runway airports in the world. The airport sees over 40 million passengers and manages around 280 ,000 flights a year. And now, it's expanding.

1:11Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has approved Gatwick's plans for a second runway. That means bringing their standby runway into routine use. This will enable an estimated 100 ,000 more flights a year. It's believed that passenger numbers will rise to 75 million by the late 2030s. UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the privately financed£2.2 billion project will create thousands more jobs. We're joined by The Standards' business editor, Jonathan Prynne, to walk us through the plans. What are they and is this a win-win for the government in the long run? Jonathan, what do we know? Why does Gatwick want to expand?

1:54Well, Gatwick is the world's busiest single runway airport and it's been getting close to capacity for some years now. It wants to expand. There's definitely a shortage of runway capacity across London and the southeast. I think that's widely recognised from an economic growth point of view. This application for a second runway has been ploughing through the planning process for quite a while now. And what must be done to bring the standby runway into use? So essentially, unlike Heathrow, which has got to build an entirely new runway from scratch, which is very complicated because it means a lot of houses being demolished and all that sort of thing, Gatwick already has a second runway.

2:37It just isn't allowed to use it for regular operations. It can only use it at the moment for emergencies and when the main runway is out of use. Now, the problem with that second runway is it's too close to the main runway for them to be used at the same time. So it has to be moved only 12 metres. I mean, it's incredible, really. It's only going to be moved 12 metres to the north at a cost of around£2 billion to make it comply with modern safety regulations. So once they've done that, planes will be able to take off from both runways at the same time, and that's the first time Gatwick will have had two operational runways.

3:19It won't be for landing, it'll only be for takeoffs, and it'll only be for smaller planes on short-haul routes. But nevertheless, it'll give a huge amount of extra capacity to Gatwick and enable Gatwick to grow for decades to come. But the government were not always happy with the proposals, were they? The government was not entirely happy with Gatwick's proposals for limiting noise and also on Gatwick's proposals for encouraging passengers to get to the airport by public transport. The government ministers now feel that Gatwick has addressed those two issues and is happy for the runway development to proceed.

4:03So Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has approved the plans. What has UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves said? Well, she's a massive, enthusiastic supporter of runway expansion. She was very much in favour of the Heathrow third runway. Now we've got Gatwick second runway. There's also going to be an extra capacity as Stansted, Luton and indeed City Airport. So there's going to be an absolutely enormous growth in capacity in the London aviation sector over the next 10 or 15 years or so. Aviation is a massively important sector for the UK economy. If you put London's five airports together, London is the biggest aviation hub in the entire world, ahead even of New York and Dubai and places like that.

4:56So it's a very important sector for London and the UK economy. It's just a slight coincidence that all these different schemes have come together. But I think Rachel Reeves will be pretty pleased because she hopes that they will be able to deliver a real boost to the economic growth that Labour has been desperate to deliver. Jonathan, there's been concern about the impacts of a second runway, such as surface transport and noise. what are campaigners opposed to the plan saying? Well it's interesting I mean the opposition comes at two levels I suppose you could say at the local level in and around Gatwick people are very worried as you say about levels of noise in particular disruption there's all sorts of concerns that are being flagged up by local residents about issues raining from wastewater management to late flights and disruption to people's lives and things like that and then And secondly, there's a sort of global level of opposition from environmental campaigners who say that these sorts of expansions to aviation in and around London just cannot be compatible with the country's commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.

6:10that the extra flights, as I say, 100 ,000 flights a year more from Gatwick will make a huge contribution to harmful emissions in and around London and feed into the global atmosphere, levels of CO2 and so on, which are contributing to global warming. The government's obviously being persuaded that the benefits of the new airport outweigh the harm. And what will Gatwick be doing to address these concerns? Well, as I say, Gatwick initially were not refused, but they're only given a conditional approval of their plans. They've now come back with some more detailed proposals on offsetting the noise.

6:55And so one thing they've said is that residents in the local area will be entitled to triple glazing at Gatwick's expense. And also people under the flight path who really find life intolerable and want to move will get their stamp duty and some other costs of moving paid for by Gatwick up to 1%, I think it is, of the price of the property. they've thrown in some extra sort of sweeties to local residents to address that noise issue but also they've given new commitments to limiting the number of people arriving by car i think the target was 50 by car and 15 by public transport they've come up with some more suggestions about you know how to encourage people to use the very good what are very good trail rail connections to get with.

7:49So I think, you know, through those sorts of concessions, they've been able to persuade the government that the project should go ahead and they'll be ready by 2029 and in time for the next election, maybe. So it's a win-win, certainly from the government's point of view. Let's go to a break. Coming up in part two. Will it translate to London? Obviously, the big question at the moment in the hospitality game. Well, it's an entirely different proposition in that it's in a hotel, it's in a real glitzy part of town. Josh Barry on London's latest New York import, Carbone. We'll see you back here in just a moment.

8:31Welcome back. Fancy dining in what feels like a scene from your favourite Mafia film? Well, New York Italian-American restaurant import Carbone has now opened in London. And it's already causing a stir. To tell us everything, we're joined by The Standard's food and drink journalist, Josh Barry. Josh, to kick off, what's the story behind Carbone? Carbone is a celebrity favourite. It opened in New York about 12 years ago, 13 years ago. It's sort of based itself on traditional Italian-American foods. It won a Michelin star after a few years. And, you know, people like Beyonce, Jay-Z, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Moss, all of those that started going, Justin Bieber, et cetera, et cetera.

9:22And then it even became the favorite restaurant of Barack Obama. And he visited while still president of the US. So it became a kind of more than just a restaurant. It was a big name and one of the most famous places to go and eat in the US. And who were the founders? Right, so it was founded by a chef called Mario Carbone, who's from Queens and grew up in a sort of traditional Italian-American household. Another Italian-American chef called Rich Talisi. And quite soon into it, this investor guy from uptown Manhattan called Jeff Zalaznik got involved and put some money into it. and now it's run by him and Mario.

10:07Because the New York branch of Carbone became so famous and revered and popular, they started rolling out other locations across the world. So there's one in Dallas, one in Vegas, one in Miami, and then one in Riyadh, Doha. But this is the first one in Europe, London. So set the scene for us. What's it like inside? Not really like the New York one. So in New York, there's a big neon light outside and it's in an older building, like an old brick building down a quite nondescript street. And as you sort of turn the corner, you see these bright red and green neons and a man, a big burly man standing outside.

10:46And you go in through the door and then through the curtains and it sort of feels a little bit like, I don't know, a scene out of Goodfellas, you know. All the tables will be full, there'll be candles, there'll be kind of bowls of nuts and fruit and so on and on the walls. and little dinky tables with white linen and a bar in the corner with a man in a red jacket. He'll be making a negroni or something, and he'll look up and be like, hey, if you've got a good booking, if you can get the cool tables out the back near the kitchen, that's where the kind of celebs sit out the way. There'll be a man wheeling a Caesar salad cart about and making them table side and a big table of drinks.

11:22A bartender will be kind of mixing Manhattans and whatever. They're quite open and transparent about the fact that they base this on, You know, it's kind of Italian-American culture. It's, you know, there are hedges of mafioso about it. You know, there's a real distinct and clear training thing that they do with their staff, you know, and they bring the bread over. There's a lot of hand gestures. It's as much a theatre performance as a restaurant. And you go for the vibe, the charm of it. Will it translate to London? Obviously the big question at the moment in the Hostiles E-game. well it's an entirely different proposition in that it's in a hotel it's in a real glitzy part of town rather than kind of just any old Manhattan and where the New York site is really small and quite intimate and candlelit the London site is enormous.

12:13And importantly what's on the menu? Yeah so the real kind of big hitters and classics the vodka pasta, vodka rigatoni that's that's the most famous dish by far and everyone needs to order that. Caesar salad, there's Dover sole, which is sort of filleted table sides. I can give you a couple of cool things, which is one, this is the first time they've ever done risotto. So there's a lobster risotto on the menu for 98 pounds, but it would feed about six people, I'd say, and you get a whole lobster on the top of it. And that's like a kind of baked risotto. I tried it, it was delicious. And there's no meatballs on the menu you have to sort of know and ask one of the servers to bring you the famous meatballs which come in a tray in tomato sauce with fried basil leaves on the top so if you do go if you do get a booking ask them for the meatballs that they're good but is this trip for a treat what's the price point the price point is very very expensive one it's a famous restaurant new in town wanting to make an impression two it's at the chancery rosewoods you know one of the newest five-star hotels in London and it's in Mayfair, isn't it?

13:22And Rovner Square, you're paying for a performance as much as you're paying for anything else. I mean, you're looking at 100 quid a head and that's worth, you know, a couple of dishes to share and a main and maybe a bottle of wine or something. It's not cheap, not cheap at all. I'd say minimum 100 quid a head. So yeah, special occasion restaurant if you can get in.

13:44And that's The Standard. For all the latest news, head on over to standard.co.uk and please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk. This show returns tomorrow at 4pm. We'll see you then.