Five-year plan continues current rate of investment

Gatwick South Terminal

The owners of Gatwick are to invest £1bn in capital works to further upgrade the airport between 2014 and 2019, they announced today.

The airport, owned by a consortium led by Global Infrastructure Partners, said it was planning a range of improvements to better the customer experience at the airport.

The five-year investment, which comes in the face of huge political uncertainty over the future role of existing London airports and lower than expected passenger numbers, is a continuation of the £1.2bn planned investment over six years between 2008 and 2014.

The announcement comes after Heathrow Airport this week launched a huge £3bn investment programme over the same period.

Improvements will include continued transformation of check-in areas, a new security area in North Terminal, and the redevelopment of Pier 1 – the UK’s oldest pier.

The announcement will affect the ten contractors on Gatwick’s framework, which are Balfour Beatty, Bouygues, Carillion, Costain, Laing O’Rourke, Vinci, VolkerFitzpatrick, Willmott Dixon, Mace and Morgan Sindall, as well as those consultants on the professional services framework. These are: Atkins, HOK, Jacobs, Morgan Sindall Professional Services and Pascal & Watson for architectural services, and Arup, Halcrow, Jacobs, Scott Wilson as civil engineers.

Gatwick claims to have invested £892m of the £1.2bn planned for the airport between 2008 and 2014 already, at a rate of £20m spent per month.