24th Aug 2026
The Third Runway Consultation: This Is Our Moment to Speak
Leaflet delivered to everyone in the Heathrow Villages
Stop Heathrow Expansion has been here before. We were here in 1949. We were here when Heathrow promised, in writing, that Terminal 5 would be the end of it - no third runway, they said, if T5 got the green light. We know how that promise was kept.
That history is why this consultation matters. The government has published its draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement - the HENPS - the rulebook that any future planning application for a third runway would be judged against. Get it wrong now, or let it pass unchallenged, and the fight gets a great deal harder from here.
This isn't a new front. It's the next chapter. And it needs your voice.
Deadline:-
Consultation closes Tuesday 1 September 2026, 11:59pm, immediately after the Bank Holiday.
Respond by Email - It Takes Five Minutes
You don't need to be an expert. You don't need a template. A short email in your own words, from someone who lives with the reality of this airport, counts as a full consultation response - and it counts for more than a form letter.
Send it to: henpsconsultation@dft.gov.uk
Subject line: Response to HENPS consultation
Include: who you are, and two or three sentences in your own words
on why you oppose expansion.
The Department for Transport has confirmed this is a valid way to respond:
"I am pleased to confirm that a short written email response is a valid consultation response. Information should include name and whether the respondent represents an organisation, and details of the organisation (e.g. workforce size), if relevant.
On this occasion, we are unable to provide a simplified version of the consultation survey for children and young people, however, we are happy to provide any clarifications on specific points as needed."
Pick two or three points below and make them your own:
A promise already broken. In 1995, Heathrow told the public a third runway would not follow Terminal 5. We have the evidence. This consultation is being run on the same trust that was already spent once - and the HENPS asks us to extend it again.
Our homes and our streets are already being reshaped. Heathrow's land acquisition has taken high-value properties while turning away lower-value ones nearby - the same streets now seeing a surge in Houses of Multiple Occupation, hollowing out settled communities before a single runway has been approved. That's not a side effect of expansion. It's already happening.
Noise and air quality that don't meet the government's own tests. The official noise safety threshold is set well above where the World Health Organization says harm begins, and communities here already live with noise levels far beyond it. Air pollution around Heathrow is projected to rise sharply on top of levels already breaching WHO guidance - and ultra-fine particles, the most dangerous pollutant from aircraft engines, aren't even legally monitored.
The economic case doesn't stand up. The Department for Transport's own appraisal shows the scheme could leave the UK tens of billions worse off over 60 years, for a fraction of a percent of GDP growth two decades from now. This isn't nationally vital infrastructure. It's a bad bet being waved through.
A "critical infrastructure" label the evidence doesn't support. The government has classified this scheme as Critical National Growth Infrastructure (CNGI), a status that creates a strong presumption in favour of granting consent once four tests are met - the HENPS itself says that once they're cleared, "it is unlikely that consent will be refused on the basis of residual impacts." That status rests entirely on claimed "economic and other strategic benefits," which the government's own appraisal suggests don't stand up. Human health is one of the few things that can still outweigh the CNGI presumption - if the economic case is this weak, it should.
Millions are already paying the price. 4.65 million people already live within a level of aircraft noise recognised as harmful to health - and the government's own modelling shows a third runway would add a further 845,000 people to that toll by 2055, on top of worsening air quality and depressed house prices for families near flight paths and land-take zones. That harm has a real cost to the public purse, not just to residents: referrals to Hillingdon Mind have risen from 2,000 a year before Covid to over 7,500 today, the highest ever recorded, with 69% now coming from the Heathrow villages alone.
This isn't being done for us. Heathrow's largest shareholders are a French investment firm and the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and China - profits flow overseas while the noise, pollution and property blight land on households here. And this is a company with form: after telling residents in 2020 that suspending the free Terminal 4 travel zone was "only a temporary measure," it never brought it back - even after posting £550 million in annual profit and paying shareholders £500 million. Communities shouldn't be asked to carry the cost of this scheme so that overseas investors and a business with this record can gain.
Want to Go Further? Use the Official Form
If you want to respond in more depth, or work through the consultation's full set of questions, use the government's official online form:
Complete the consultation form
Either way you respond, do it before Tuesday 1 September 2026, 11:59pm. We've had decades of being told to wait our turn. This is our turn.