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BAA has unveiled plans to double the size of Stansted Airport in Essex at a cost of £2.5 billion.

The two-runway, two-terminal airport is expected to be open in 2015, serving 68 million passengers a year by around 2030.

Expanding the airport will create over 13,000 new jobs by 2030 and bring economic benefits of £9 billion to the UK, BAA said in a statement as the airport operator submitted its planning application for the second runway.

Although 13 listed buildings will need to be taken down, ten will be dismantled and rebuilt.

Sir Nigel Rudd, chairman of BAA, said: "We remain fully committed to building a second runway, a project that is central to government policy in delivering additional runway capacity in the south-east.

"This important project will bring huge benefits to the East of England and UK economy, and will increase choice and opportunity for millions of business and leisure travellers."

Alastair McDermid, BAA Director for Stansted Generation 2, added: "But this is not growth at any cost. The global issue of climate change is one which we take very seriously and is recognised as requiring international action."

Campaigners against the expansion of Stansted did not welcome the news, however.

Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) chairman Peter Sanders said: "We will fight BAA's plans tooth and nail in what will be a defining test of whether protection of our environment is more highly valued by the government than still more cheap flights and doing BAA's bidding."

The campaign group claims a second runway would destroy one thousand acres of countryside and add the annual equivalent of 11 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the UK's carbon footprint.