Dear Ruth Kelly,

Together with the secretary of state for transport you called in, on Monday 21 July, BAA's application for a second runway at Stansted before announcing the decision on the expanded use of the second runway is made known.

It seems to me unreasonable that you have done so, indeed that the second runway application was allowed at all before your joint decision on the previous application was announced and the inspector's report released.

As a second runway would be predicated on the prior expansion of the first it must appear that you have already decided to allow this.

I therefore request that the inspectors report be made available without further delay on these grounds and because it will be necessary to all who wish to respond to the second runway application. These applications are complex and individuals and local communities are inherently at a disadvantage against huge corporations like BAA with vast sums to spend. The continued unavailability of the inspector's report adds to the disadvantage.

Yours faithfully,

John Drake
9 Woodside Cottages
Nathans Lane
Edney Common
Chelmsford
Essex CM1 3RD

I have receieved a reply to my original request from the Department for Transport. The writer (Hannah Morton, Airports Policy Division, Zone 1/26) refused to disclose the information I requested.

I have written back as follows:

Hannah Morton
Airports Policy Division, Zone 1/26
Great Minster House
76 Marsham St
London
SW1P 4DR

Cc Rt Hon Ruth Kelly MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Govt.
Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP, Secretary of State for Transport

REQUEST UNDER FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT for PUBLICATION OF INSPECTOR’S REPORT FOLLOWING PUBLIC INQUIRYON BAA’S APPLICATION TO EXTEND THE USE OF THE EXISTING RUNWAY AT STANSTED AIRPORT

YOUR REF: P0004398

03 August 2008

Dear Hannah Morton,
Thank you for your letter of 25 July. I am not happy with the way in which my request has been handled.

You have assured me that consideration of the Inspector's report on G1 is still ongoing and that a Ministerial decision on it has not yet been made. You have given this as the minister’s justification for not publishing the Inspector's report at this stage. If this is the case the situation is the exact reverse. The key determinant of the application for a second runway – i.e. whether the expansion of the existing runway will or will not be approved - remains unresolved. All other matters on which the call-in notice says the Ruth Kelly wishes to be informed are subservient to this – i.e. the GI decision comes first.

Also the reasons you give for withholding the inspector’s report are entirely the opposite of the true situation. It is in fact the non-publication of the G1 inquiry decision and the inspector’s report that is inhibiting “free exchange of views and prejudicing effective conduct of public affairs”. This includes the disadvantaged position in which it continues to place individuals and local communities in responding to BAA’s application.

I therefore repeat my request that the Inspector’s report be released immediately under the FoI Act. Failing that, the only proper action will be for Ms Kelly to withdraw the call in letters forthwith and not to re-issued them in any form until after the G1 decision has been published, along with the Inspector's report.

Note: I enclose hard copies for both ministers. I have also sent this letter electronically, via the option offered on the FoI website, to Ruth Kelly

Yours Sincerely

John Drake
9 Woodside Cottages
Nathans Lane
Edney Common
Chelmsford
Essex CM1 3RD