Stansted spend £90m buying ‘runway houses’
30.09.09
BAA, which is planning a second runway at Stansted Airport, has spent £90m buying up properties around the site in Essex, the BBC reports. It has now bought all but six properties within the proposed boundary for a second runway. Homes threatened by noise blight from the new runway are also being purchased, giving BAA ownership of about 270 properties.
BAA has so far spent £180m on its second runway proposal - half to buy homes, commercial buildings, farms and land up to several miles from the airport. In the village of Takeley, close to Stansted, about 100 homeowners, within a 66 decibel noise zone, have sold up to BAA.
One of the latest properties bought by the airport operator is the historic thatched Three Horseshoes pub at Molehill Green, where campaign group Stop Stansted Expansion protesters meet. Landlord Paul Holmes, who has a new five year lease with BAA, told the BBC: ‘I am really looking forward to the future. I can sympathise with the people in the Stop Stansted Expansion now there is a compulsory purchase order on them and the uncertainty of when it is going to happen. That is taken away if you sell to BAA.’
That runway development is currently mothballed. A planning inquiry due to take place in the spring was postponed because BAA was ordered to sell the airport by the Competition Commission. It is appealing this order, with a decision expect this year.
To book a stansted airport hotel or stansted airport car park at the lowest price, click on these links to two great stansted airport car parking and stansted airport hotel price comparison pages.
