Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect of an expansion of Heathrow Airport on trends in the level of road freight traffic to that airport.

In July 2015, the Airports Commission published alongside its Final Report a surface access freight impact study, which considered the effect of an expansion of Heathrow airport on goods vehicle demand growth. This study can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/437276/surface-access-freight-impacts-study.pdf .

As part of the surface access requirements in the draft Airports National Policy Statement, Government has specified that any application for development consent should set out mitigation measures to minimise and mitigate the effect of expansion on existing surface access arrangements.