The Department for Transport has tightened its rules for private discussions about Heathrow expansion after consultation on the proposed national planning policy closed. An updated statement of approach published on 23rd October 2026 explains which contacts are now restricted while officials consider the responses.
The consultation on the draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement closed on 1st September 2026. Ministers are not announcing a new runway consent or reopening that consultation. Their immediate task is to consider the evidence already submitted and decide how the policy framework should proceed.
For councils, residents, airport businesses and campaign groups, I think the practical point is fairness. Heathrow expansion remains politically contentious, but the government says it will not allow selected participants a further private opportunity to improve or promote their consultation submissions.
How Heathrow expansion talks are now restricted
The revised statement says officials will take a more limited approach to engagement than during the consultation period. In particular, the department will not accept a stakeholder meeting requested solely to discuss, supplement or further promote views already submitted on the draft statement.
The restriction also covers meetings about the draft policy’s contents between stakeholders, including prospective project promoters, and the Department for Transport team working on the policy review. If that team needs clarification of something in a response, it will approach the stakeholder in writing.
This is more specific than a general instruction to avoid lobbying. It separates the formal evidence-gathering period from the subsequent period when officials assess the material. A response cannot simply be given extra weight because its author has the resources or contacts to secure a private appointment.
On continuing contact, the Department for Transport says it will “treat comparable stakeholders consistently”. That is the central fairness commitment behind the latest Heathrow expansion statement, and a useful benchmark against which any future meeting arrangements can be judged.
What discussions can still take place?
The document does not require ministers and civil servants to break off all contact with Heathrow Airport Limited, local authorities, regulators or community organisations. It draws a distinction between attempts to revisit the policy consultation and discussions that government needs for other legitimate reasons.
For example, the department can initiate discussions to obtain information about scheme delivery or other issues necessary for effective government business. It can also continue ordinary operational engagement with airport operators, public bodies and regulators where the purpose is separate from making representations on the draft national policy statement.
That distinction matters because work on a major transport scheme cannot stop entirely while national policy is being reviewed. Technical information about capacity, infrastructure, environmental constraints or delivery may still be needed, provided it is not treated as a back door for rewriting a closed consultation response.
For any post-consultation engagement, the department says it will maintain records of substantive discussions, avoid giving selected stakeholders an apparent advantage and apply consistent treatment. I would expect those safeguards to be important if the eventual policy is challenged over procedural fairness.
Heathrow expansion policy is not planning permission
The draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement, generally shortened to HENPS, sets out proposed national policy for considering a third runway and associated infrastructure. Its consultation began on 18th June 2026 and ended on 1st September. The government still has to consider those responses and complete the appropriate parliamentary process before any amended policy takes effect.
There is a separate and later question: should development consent be granted for an actual airport expansion scheme? The government explicitly distinguishes the draft policy from planning consent. A third runway would still require a development consent application under the Planning Act 2008 regime.
If you want the wider legal context, Planning Geek’s guide to national policy statements for nationally significant infrastructure projects explains why a national policy statement guides a later decision but does not itself authorise construction. The same distinction applies to the Heathrow expansion review.
The policy debate includes airport growth, noise, air quality, climate impacts and the effects on surrounding communities. These matters are relevant to national policy. They may also generate evidence and requirements at the project-consent stage, but the two processes should not be treated as interchangeable.
Does the new approach favour the runway promoter?
Heathrow Airport Limited’s proposed Northwest Runway scheme was selected in November 2025 as the scheme used to inform the review of the old Airports National Policy Statement. That selection was a policy-development step, not the grant of development consent and not a legal declaration that no other promoter could submit a proposal.
In earlier departmental guidance, ministers said competing promoters should receive equal information where their identities were known, while the policy review team remained appropriately separate from those discussing scheme delivery. The latest statement continues that emphasis on fair process after consultation.
For supporters, Heathrow expansion is about airport capacity, jobs and national connectivity. Objectors point to the potentially extensive implications for homes, communities, noise and the environment. Neither side has secured a determination on those matters merely because the government has set rules for its own meetings.
Our earlier report on Heathrow’s revised runway opening timetable covers the distinction between its ambition to obtain permission by 2029 and a later expected opening date. The new engagement restrictions do not, by themselves, change either timetable or provide evidence that an application is ready for examination.
What should councils and interested parties do now?
For anyone following the Heathrow expansion process, the first question is which stage they are addressing. A comment on the now-closed national policy consultation is different from a representation on an eventual development consent application, which would have its own formal procedures and evidence requirements.
I would retain the full text of any consultation response, note the evidence it relies on and watch for the government’s next published decision on the policy statement. Do not assume a new ministerial meeting can be used to add missing arguments to the September response.
Where an authority or affected organisation is asked by the department for clarification, it should distinguish factual assistance from advancing a new case. If a discussion concerns project delivery rather than policy submissions, a clear record of the purpose and scope should reduce the risk of later disagreement.
There has still been no final designation of the revised Heathrow policy simply by virtue of the 23rd October statement. Nor does this document announce the acceptance, examination or approval of a development consent application. Any such milestone must be verified separately when it happens.
Original government documents
Department for Transport: updated statement of approach, 23rd October 2026; engagement policy collection and update history; the draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement explained.
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