Andy Burnham refuses to back Heathrow’s third runway

In the latest update, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has declined to confirm his support for a third runway at Heathrow after it emerged that the expansion of the London airport could be delayed by up to four years.

On Sunday, he opposed the project with Laura Kuenssberg, “I think principally it is a matter for London and Londoners.”

“I think we ought to hear the voices of people there first. It's not right for me to just jump straight in on the back of the consultation, he continued.”

Burnham, being Manchester's mayor, had been opposed to the project due to apprehension that it would delay investment in transport of the North..

The project’s projected cost of £33bn has sparked fierce local and environmental backlash from local residents as well as the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.

Primarily, a third runway would mean demolishing hundreds of homes, diverting rivers and rerouting a section of the M25 motorway through a tunnel.

It is roughly calculated it would create 100,000 jobs and provide a major boost to the UK economy. It has been observed that the number of flights from the site is capped at 480,000 a year and could rise up to 720,000 a day on average.

Heathrow this weekend also acknowledged that meeting the original deadline would be difficult to achieve without further steps to streamline the entire planning process. Furthermore, the Department for Transport said the timeline had always been aspiring and asserted it would continue to work with stakeholders who are moving expeditiously on the matter.