Hoon admits figures error on Heathrow

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But Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon, who gave the go-ahead for expansion at Heathrow in January, said the mistake did "not materially affect" evidence presented on the impact of expansion of the west London airport.

The mistake - which related to the predicted 2009 gross domestic product growth rate - means the Government has now issued lower net benefit figures for this particular passenger demand forecast.

Mr Hoon said today the GDP figure was given as plus one per cent when it should have been minus one per cent - meaning the Stansted second runway and terminal capacity net benefit under the GDP test comes down from £8.7billion to £8.6billion. And, under the same criteria, the Heathrow third runway and sixth terminal net benefit comes down from £5.4billion to £5.1billion.

But Mr Hoon said that the overall expansion cost benefit figure, known as the central case, remained unchanged for both airports. It is £10billion for Stansted and £5.5billion for Heathrow.

He said the mistake was relevant to those preparing evidence for the public inquiry into the Stansted expansion and that participants were being alerted to the corrections.