High Court ruling denies three individuals access to a week-long demonstration opposing aiport expansion

BAA has won a partial victory in its bid to ban climate change protestors from Heathrow.

BAA won a High Court ruling yesterday banning protestors belonging to three groups from Heathrow during a week-long climate change camp in August. The protestors oppose the government’s airport expansion plans.

However, protest organisers say the ruling is a setback for the airport operator, as it represents a significant scaling back of its original ambition – to ban fifteen groups, covering 5m people.

BAA is also waiting to hear this week whether the Competition Commission will look at breaking BAA’s monopoly of London airports, amid concern that lack of competition is damaging investment.

Question marks have been raised over investment in Heathrow in particular since Ferrovial’s takeover of BAA. Capital expenditure at Heathrow was £252m over the last year, compared with £298m the previous year.

Last week, Ferrovial reported first half profit of £991m on a turnover of £4.8bn. This included a net profit of £70.6m from BAA.

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