that any increase in such pollution, if extensively mitigated, should be no bar because there were more populous pockets of London where the pollution levels were currently even worse. Prime Minister David Cameron chaired a Cabinet committee to consider the report. The committee excluded prominent disapproving Cabinet members who were critical of Heathrow expansion, prompting further controversy. The justification for excluding these ministers was that, having previously set out their opinions, they had a conflict of interest. The Conservative Member of Parliament for Richmond Park (heavily centred on a main landing path) and former editor of The Ecologist magazine, Zac Goldsmith, who in July 2015 and polled runner up for 2016-2020 Mayor of London, had vowed to resign his seat in Parliament and against his own party, if Heathrow expansion plans were to be approved by the Government. 26 October 2016: Heathrow is chosen over Gatwick as the preferred place to build a new runway. Goldsmith resigned and lost the by-election though he was subsequently re-elected at the next General Election as an expansion-critical Conservative. 2019: Second phase of the new Terminal 2 complete. 2020s 2020: the COVID-19 pandemic hit the aviation and tourism industry hard; the airport announced that from 6 April the airport would switch to single-runway operation. It was reported that some 200 homeless people had moved to using Heathrow Airport, as some of the London amenities they were used to using were closed due to the UK lockdown. Plans for future Historic images of Heathrow References External links Photograph excavations for first runway ca.1944 from Imperial War Museum collection http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205210809 Research project: The life of Sir Richard Fairey (1887-1956), aircraft designer and industrialist https://www.southampton.ac.uk/history/research/projects/life_of_richard_fairey.page London Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport