London Gatwick Northern Runway Project

Twelve metres of pavement is what stands between London Gatwick and a second working runway. The airport’s northern strip has sat as a standby since the 1970s, too close to the main runway to be used simultaneously under international separation standards. Moving it 12 metres north fixes that, and after the Court of Appeal dismissed the final legal challenge on 4 August 2026, Gatwick can finally build it.

Project Scope

The GBP 2.2 billion programme is much more than a runway shift. Terminal extensions, new airport buildings, a flyover over the South Terminal roundabout and upgrades to the North Terminal roundabout all sit inside the consented scheme. Peak site workforce is expected to reach roughly 3,200. The Development Consent Order was granted by the Secretary of State for Transport on 21 September 2025 after examination by the Planning Inspectorate, and the August 2026 ruling closed out the judicial review route. Gatwick refreshed its Building and Civils frameworks in June 2026, appointing eleven firms including Costain, Morgan Sindall and Mace Construct, though those appointments cover the airport’s wider capital programme and are not confirmation of a runway package award. The runway is targeted to enter service in 2030, with associated works running out to 2038.

Why It Matters

This is the first genuine addition of runway capacity in the London system in decades, and it’s being delivered without a new runway. Gatwick’s argument throughout the four-year consent fight was that repurposing existing pavement is cheaper, faster and less carbon-intensive than greenfield expansion, and the Department for Transport put a number on the payoff: roughly GBP 1 billion a year in economic benefit and about 14,000 regional jobs. Capacity rises by up to 100,000 additional flights a year.

For contractors, the hard part is that all of it happens on a live airfield handling tens of millions of passengers. Runway relocation means new lighting, navaids, glide slope realignment and taxiway ties, sequenced around operations that don’t stop. The wider works add landside civils and terminal fit-out on the same constrained site. Gatwick’s decision to appoint a framework panel before letting packages suggests it expects to buy this in slices rather than as one megacontract, which is the right call on a job where the airfield interface risk is bigger than the earthworks.

Project Team & Details