Green light given for London Southend Airport extension

PA

An extension to London Southend Airport's new terminal has been given a green light - and will create 300 jobs in the process.

Rochford Council agreed to the 90-metre extension, which will allow for more check-in desks, baggage drop-off points and security screening channels, according to Travel Mole.

The airport hopes it will be handling two million passengers a year by 2020, and already claims to get departing passengers through security in four minutes.

This is in sharp contrast to Heathrow, where some passengers waited two hours to clear immigration earlier this month.

Meanwhile, passengers coming to Britain for the Olympics could face lengthy queues this summer because the UK Border Agency has "insufficient funding" to open all the passport control stations, a leaked letter revealed.

Culture Select Committee chairman John Whittingdale wrote a letter to Culture, Media and Sport secretary Jeremy Hunt outlining his concerns.

Mr Whittingdale said that two members from his committee had attended a briefing by Heathrow operator BAA, and said the MPs "did not leave the briefing confident that Heathrow was ready to cope with the arrival of a huge number of competitors, Olympic family and visiting tourists in timely fashion".

In response, Border Force has said they are working with BAA to ensure they are ready to deal with extra passengers, adding: "There isn't a trade-off between strong border security and a good passenger experience - Border Force should be delivering both."

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