Airport Authority promises social impact study for third runway

The Airport Authority has bowed to pressure from green groups and agreed to carry out a social impact study on the planned third runway at Chek Lap Kok, as activists continue to snub meetings on the controversial project.

But the airport operator has yet to specify what will be covered by the study, saying only that it will develop an approach "meaningful to local context and specific to the runway project".

"We will devise the most appropriate method, looking at air, health or traffic congestion issues. We'll adopt the best world practice too," the authority's executive director of business development, Wilson Fung Wing-yip, said.

Fung did not give a timetable but said he believed the voluntary study would be done in parallel with the statutory environmental impact assessment of the project, which involves 650 hectares of reclamation from the sea.

Speaking to media yesterday, Fung said the social return on investment study carried out by the New Economics Foundation for the third runway at London's Heathrow Airport - to put a monetary value on such social costs as noise, air pollution and congestion - could not be directly copied. Instead, he said, approaches used by the World Bank or the European Union to assess transport projects might be more relevant.

Fung also said it was "unfortunate" that none of the green groups invited to a meeting yesterday had shown up.