Heathrow runway - will it ever happen?

[scooterscot]

You are forgetting the fact that LHR is not just about passengers. About 50K work there, and some of the estates nearby are equivalent to small towns on their own. BA Waterside alone is huge. Most of the Hayes, Feltham, Ashford and Hounslow industrial estates are populated by freight and logistics companies. Half of Slough is reliant on LHR for the same reason. It's also no coincidence that so many tech companies are located around the M3 / M4 corridor. Stockley Park was only built because of its proximity to LHR. Then there are all the suppliers (catering, engineering etc.)
So take that 50k, multiply it by about 10, add in their families, and then add in the people that would be needed to support that number (schools, hospitals, retail outlets, various other public services - you add whatever you think I've missed) and their families, and we're up at around 1.5 million. Even at the most optimistic guess, that around 100k daily will use Crossrail or whatever the high speed rail equivalent may be to travel to work or travel as passengers between London and the new "Island" airport, the freight traffic alone will kill the M25 stone dead.
As I tried to explain earlier, the "footprint" of LHR is about the same size as Birmingham, like it or not. Freight alone is worth around £150bn a year.
Comparing that to HK building a new airport about 20m away from the old one is like comparing apples and oranges. I'll bet you 10p they don't have low emission zones and traffic restrictions on large freight vehicles.
I'm sure you'll want to compare LHR to the newish (and very nice) airport in Munich, but with all due respect, Munich isn't the south east of England, and Hong Kong isn't either.

This is not the policy for prosperity, in my opinion. The airport's function is transport, not jobs. Increasing capacity at an 'at capacity' airport is only going to clog the arteries, such as the M25.

If we keep pussy footing around like this we'll never be bold enough to develop diddly.

[SueEllen]

Let's hope we are both alive when that happens.

Since the government wants to hand over (dump) the management of train lines that go through London on the Mayor of London by 2020, we should be.

The buses improved when the Mayor took over. They are all on franchises but timetabled by TFL who take a more proactive approach than the Department of Transport.