Second Stansted runway is put back again to 2017

THE OPENING of a second runway at Stansted airport is likely to be delayed by a further two years to 2017, it was revealed today.

Protest group Stop Stansted Expansion was given the later date in a letter from solicitors acting for airport operator BAA.

Protesters said the project had been "a farce from the start" and should be scrapped but BAA insisted the runway's completion date depended on a "number of factors". The Government's aviation White Paper envisaged a second runway in 2011/12. However that date was put back to 2013 then 2015.

Stop Stansted's economics adviser Brian Ross said: "It is wholly unacceptable for BAA to try to keep its options open by continuing to postpone the threat of a second runway. It should remove the threat once and for all."

A BAA spokesman said: "What has not changed is the need for a new runway, given the shortage of airport capacity in south-east England."