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The owner of Luton Airport has delayed the submission of its £1.5bn expansion plans.
A development consent order (DCO) application for a second terminal at the airport was due to be submitted by the end of this year, however NCE sister title Construction News has learned that the application has been pushed back to 2023.
Earlier this year, Luton Rising – a Luton Council subsidiary that owns the airport – consulted on revised expansion proposals that would eventually increase the airport’s annual passenger capacity from 18M to 32M.
The consultation ended in April. An application to government for a DCO was due to follow this year, but this has now been pushed back to 2023, the chief executive of Luton Rising has said.
The new plans consist of two phases, with the first expanding the existing terminal to 21.5M passengers per year and the second building a new terminal. This second phase is itself split into two parts, with the new terminal boosting capacity to 27M per year and further expansion later increasing it to 32M.
Construction would not begin until at least 2025. Consultation documents state that delivering the project would take up to 20 years, “during which there will be periods of construction activity and others with no activity”.
