The UK government opened a formal consultation on 18 June 2026 on the draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement (HENPS). This is the statutory planning process that will set the policy framework for a third runway at the airport.

The HENPS is the designated national policy statement under the Planning Act 2008 — the document against which Heathrow's Development Consent Order application will be assessed by the Planning Inspectorate. It is the legal foundation the project needs to advance through the development consent process. The consultation is not a preliminary soundingout; it is how government tests and refines the policy basis on which a DCO could be lawfully decided.

The government's conditions for expansion, confirmed since the scheme selection in November 2025, have remained consistent. Ministers said any expansion must be cost-effective, minimise the burden on passengers, and come at no cost to the exchequer — placing commercial and financial risk with the airport and its investors rather than taxpayers.

The consultation documentation also requires that expansion proposals include a clear strategy for job creation and economic benefit realisation. That requirement reflects a political shift — Heathrow's economic case has historically centred on aggregate GDP and connectivity arguments, but ministers are now signalling that outcomes for jobs and their distribution across regions need to be visible in the evidence, not assumed.

Heathrow's third runway has a long history. Government first announced support in October 2016. What followed was a decade of legal challenges, a pandemic that disrupted traffic forecasts, and multiple iterations of the policy framework. The HENPS consultation is a resumption rather than a fresh start — but it carries procedural weight that earlier proposals did not, because it opens the gateway to a statutory DCO process.

Expansion documents and consultation resources are available via heathrow.com/expansion. The consultation period allows stakeholders — local authorities, airlines, freight operators, environmental groups, and affected communities — to submit representations on the draft before it is designated. Designation requires a parliamentary vote, which means the government will need to manage its own backbenches, particularly MPs in constituencies under the flightpath.

The no-cost-to-the-exchequer condition deserves close attention. It constrains the financing model: no public equity, no government-backed debt, and implicitly no regulatory approach that would pass construction risk to passengers through fare increases before the infrastructure exists. Whether the project can be financed on that basis — and at what cost — is now a live question for investors and the Civil Aviation Authority as economic regulator.

The job-creation requirement adds another layer. Heathrow will need to demonstrate not only that overall employment grows but that there is a credible, monitored pathway to delivering it. That is a more demanding evidential standard than the project has previously faced, and it will shape how the airport structures its planning obligations and negotiations with the London Borough of Hillingdon and other local authorities.

What remains unresolved is timing. The designation of the NPS, the submission of a DCO application, and the examination and decision process each carry their own timetables — none of them short. Those engaged in planning and aviation policy are now calibrating their strategies. The window for influencing the NPS before designation is finite, and the representations submitted in this consultation will form part of the formal record considered by the Planning Inspectorate when any DCO application is examined.