Airport plans to give up runway for new housing

Edinburgh Airport is to sacrifice its secondary runway to build a business and housing complex.

Offices, homes and industrial buildings would stretch from the south-east of the passenger terminal to nearly two miles down the road.

The airport said it was too early to say how much the development would cost, but bosses are hopeful construction can get under way as early as next year.

A planned new terminal access road would be the catalyst for the plans to take off.

Previous plans for an adjacent development area south of the airport had sought to attract major companies but failed to get off the ground because of the lack of key infrastructure.

The site will occupy much of the crosswind runway, which the airport said was rarely used.

It runs south-east to north-west and cannot be used at the same time as the adjacent main south-west to north-east runway.

Land for a planned second runway, which is expected to be needed around 2050, has been reserved to the north of the main runway.

Edinburgh Airport chief executive Gordon Dewar said: “It will make it harder to avoid disruption, but we believe we have solutions that will address it.

“Our ambition is not to generate a large amount of extra traffic.

“This is a really exciting proposal for what would be one of the best connected sites by public transport in Scotland.

“There will be a real array of development on what is a very big site.

“We think it will be an incredibly attractive location and are very optimistic the first steps can be taken next year.”