With a new Government in place, the issue of airport expansion will become one of the first major decisions for the new administration to make.
Despite a new intake of MPs, a new Government and a new Cabinet, the same divisions of old remain with opponents to Heathrow resolute.
But against this backdrop of Heathrow’s political hurdles, Gatwick has remained the only deliverable option. This is because it is:
- Cheaper: Gatwick guarantees its runway plans will be privately funded and will be half the cost of Heathrow expansion, with no need for billions of pounds of public subsidy.
- Simpler: with land already safeguarded for expansion, Gatwick offers a much simpler solution without the complex challenges facing Heathrow – no tunnelling the M25, no landfill sites to clean up, simply Britain getting on with it.
- Faster: Gatwick can have a second runway operational by 2025, delivering greater competition and better connectivity for the UK faster
- Quieter: the noise from Gatwick’s second runway would affect far fewer people that Heathrow’s third runway – that’s 36,000 people at Gatwick versus 683,000 at Heathrow.
So after decades of debate, the expansion issue has been up in the air long enough – with Gatwick, Britain’s new runway can actually happen.
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13 Comments
Quick – we need a vet. This horse needs its pulse checked again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29515800
But Peter Chivall, of the Green Liberal Democrats group, urged the party leadership to “see sense”.
He said: “We know that the only way you can restrict aviation and restrict the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by planes is to restrict the number of runways. And that’s the way we have to go.”
Perhaps we should shot first and then check for a pulse?
No.
Quite simply, more runways means more flights, obviously. More flights, means more pollution, obviously. An extension at Gatwick means more concentration of money in London and the South East, obviously.
There’s so much wrong with this, I don’t know where to start, obviously.
We have to compete in a globalized world. Gatwick 2 is a much better option than Heathrow 3 for all the reasons listed – however, we need much better connectivity between the two – a levitation railway following the central M25 corridor? There also needs to be some greater rationalization/specialization between the two airports so that they truly complement one another, rather than one being the ugly sister.
John Innes
That is the under discussed issue a direct fast link is required but ignored. I’m not sure a maglev would be cost effective though.
even though that was the only time I have ever heard enthusiasm for one.
We could ask Elon Musk to build his hyperloop train concept between them
http://hypebeast.com/2015/2/elon-musks-hyperloop-rapid-transit-line-to-launch-demo-next-year
Might be worth doing a loop around London linking all the airports – and then looking at using the concept for HS3
“We have to compete in a globalized world.” – another meaningless and over used soundbite, just like “you can’t stand in the way of progress”…
John Innes 20th May ’15 – 8:06am
“.. We have to compete in a globalized world. ”
I ab-react to any comment which begins with the sentence — “.. We have to compete in a globalized world. ”
My immediate reaction is – “why?” or perhaps “and who will benefit from that?”
Having said that I have a lot of sympathy for the rest of what you put in your comment.
The poor links between London’s main railway stations and airports is shameful. I suppose it grew out of the failure of the free market approach to railway building in the nineteenth century which resulted in competing private interests plonking railway stations next door to each other but making no link up.
As a result, 170 years later, someone living south of London and wanting to travel by train to Paris still has to get on a train heading north into London, get off at a station to transfer to a tube , bus or taxi to travel a couple of miles across the busiest and most congested part of the UK to get to a railway station in North London to get on a train to Paris.
This train may actually pass the person’s house on the way to the Chunnel. The journey will have had a couple of hours added before this person has enjoyed the privilege of seeing the train shoot past their back garden.
Getting to one of the so-called “London” airports is even more bizarre. In South West London where I live the travel time to Southampton Airport by train can be considerably shorter than the travel time to some of the so-called “London” Airports.
They moved what was London’s airport from Croydon to Heathrow before I was born. In my lifetime we have seen the entire Motorway system built from scratch. Yet still no proper rail links to most airpots. I am now retired yet there is not a decent railway link across London or to Heathrow. Things will probably get worse as the Tories ignore their traditional Sussex voters and the Gatwick area becomes ‘Fracking Central’ — the centre of the UK oil industry beyond Salford.
Perhaps they will change the name of Gatwick to ‘Fracking Central’ — it has quite a ring to it.
No doubt it would help to build ‘Brand Gatwick’. There is probably a web-designer working on it already.
The old railway companies actually wanted to build a station in central London but were prevented from doing so by Parliament which thought it would be a nuisance because of the smoke and noise which would affect them. The competing lines which were closed by Beeching did provide useful facilities for travellers for 100 years before competition from road transport made them largely redundant sadly.
Although maybe one should not normally put all one’s eggs in one basket it would be a great benefit for travellers if they could change flights in the same airport and not have to take trains or taxis etc to go to another one but I guess convenience and practicality are not major concerns for the politically active – no wonder people are so cynical about politics.
One other thing – if Heathrow is so damaging to the locals why are there huge hoardings advertising new houses being built there ? Many people are not bothered by noise and would prefer to live near their work. We live in an imperfect world and we cannot cater for the wishes of everyone. I suspect many of those who complain about noise are the ones who travel most.
I hate to say this, but my impression of why the Thames airport project was dismissed was because of vested interests in the current setup, leaving Gatwick and Heathrow slugging it out. Heathrow is a terrible place to have an airport. Probably London should have been redesigned with the green belt surrounding the airport, not strangling the city.