Reply to: Heathrow - for Londoners only?

[MPwannadecentincome]

So it seems the 3rd Runway is not flavour of the month anymore

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...far-too-big.do

Even with no new runway Heathrow is still far too big
Simon Jenkins
13.10.09 So is it victory? Sensational weekend reports that the British Airports Authority has abandoned its bid for a third runway at Heathrow remain unconfirmed, and indeed denied by the company.

But the indications are clear, as is the Tory promise to rescind the bid. The time-honoured pledge that Heathrow would not grow was reneged on by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Now it might be reasserted, and the threat of jet-scream lifted from hundreds of thousands of London residents.

Recession, which means poverty, is yielding ever more green linings. Kent's new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth has been halted. Iconic skyscrapers are withering on the drawing board.

The extravagant Crossrail project is again in doubt. But nothing is greener than opposition to millions of tons of concrete being poured over Harmondsworth meadows so that more jumbo jets can roar over anywhere in London with a W in its postcode.

Heathrow has been a textbook case of rotten government ever since it became the main London airport in succession to Croydon after the war.

Two runways were eventually built and a categorical promise given to those under the flight path that this was enough "for all time".

The promise was given again with the approval of Terminal 4 in 1978, when an absolute cap of 275,000 flights was added.

Since then every promise has been broken. Terminal 5 was added and the cap revised upwards to 480,000 flights.

When the new terminal was supposedly about to open in 2006, the Labour Transport Minister, Ruth Kelly, was totally captured by the Big Carbon lobby of BAA and the national carrier, BA, and by "predict and provide" planning.

She claimed that the capital's economy needed a third runway after all, but that it would be small and its flights would only be to the west over countryside.

Three years later her successor, Geoff Hoon, reneged on that. He said he would allow not just a third runway but a sixth terminal and a new cap of 700,000 flights. The whole saga has been one of corporate and political mendacity.

Londoners should never believe a word from an air industry executive or a minister for planning. They lie.

With an eye to the main chance, the Tories have opposed the third runway at Heathrow and warned BAA not to sign contracts for a project they will stop.

Boris Johnson has added his pennyworth (or billions-worth) and revived the once-dead idea of a �9 billion airport on an island in the Thames Estuary.

His deputy, Kit Malthouse, has even discovered that it can be built without public money - and doubtless used for landing flying pigs.

The concept of responsibility has simply evaporated from public life. For better or worse, new runways do not feature in the Mayor's new transport strategy announced yesterday.

Those old enough to have lived through the horrors of "London's third airport" in the Seventies will recall that anything to do with airports is horrible.

The infrastructure is massive - and energy-guzzling.

The congestion and noise pollution is extensive and opposition is certain to be bitter. That is why the biggest new airports these days are built by dictators.

Back in 1973 the then Tory government decided to put a third London airport on Maplin Sands at the mouth of the Thames Estuary in Essex.

It now seems a visionary option, but then it was dismissed as too far away and a threat to (and from) birds. Airlines demanded somewhere closer.

Stansted was chosen instead, with added pledges not to expand Stansted or Gatwick, in addition to Heathrow.

These non-expansion pledges have been honoured while that to Heathrow has been broken. Honour in business is a matter of profit.

Hoon, who gave permission for the Heathrow third runway in January, now has egg all over his face. Those who live by subordinating long-term planning to short-term profit tend to die by it.

London airport planning is a victim of classic British government cynicism. On any showing it is in a mess.

The Thames Estuary airport could conceivably be London's version of Hong Kong's new Chek Lap Kok airport, the most costly modern building project on earth.

But with London government still trying to swallow the Olympics and having, against its better judgment, to continue planning Crossrail, the idea of another so-called lumpy project consuming money and political energy is more than anyone can bear.

Assuming the Government does not impose swingeing taxes on air travel, demand will continue to rise.

In which case there is little alternative to pricing Heathrow out of its current overcrowding and into sanity by removing the bulk of its UK tourism flights and dumping them ever farther from the capital.

Two thirds of Heathrow's users are leisure travellers and their presence in west London is hardly a personal or commercial necessity - let alone "vital to London's economy", as aviation lobbyists chant.

I might be annoyed to be denied Heathrow's convenient half-hour drive to my front door but I cannot honestly expect that this convenience should be at the expense of the amenity of hundreds of thousands of west London residents. Tourist destinations should be served from elsewhere.

If green policy is to mean anything it must curb mobility. Curbing will be in part by congestion, as practised daily on the streets of London. But mostly it will be by price.

For burning carbon by internal combustion people must be charged sufficiently to make them go by muscle-power or not at all - or at least go from outside London.

Heathrow is essentially an urban airport imposing severe external costs on its city. It should be made very expensive to use.

It would be good to know if the Government agrees.

[Sysman]

I doubt it, Napoleon operated a level of authoritarian control that even the Third Reich could only dream of. The influence is evident in France to the present day: the government are the officers, the civil servants are the NCOs and are about as much "civil" and "servants" as any NCOs are, and the people are the cannon fodder. Go to a compulsory interview at a French government office and you will feel it.

If that is indeed the case, I was told porkies.

(not actually surprise given the source)

[pzz76077]

If only they'd do something like, say, build a tunnel under the Channel.

Still far too much hassle and cost compared with the rest of Europe.

PZZ

[MPwannadecentincome]

It gets better when you are in central Europe, though the drive back to the UK is obviously more of a grind. There are also night sleeper trains, which I fancy trying out just for fun (Agatha Christie being an obvious choice for reading material).

Just beware of people breaking in with chloroform and having to wake up finding your wallet, credit cards and expensive camera and phone have disappeared.

[expat]

It's not just town planning . Apparently the Germans instigated this business of registering with your local town hall within so many days of moving to a new address. When they go kicked out of France, the French thought that the system was quite good so kept it. I suspect that the priority from the right rule when driving was originated by the Germans too.

I doubt it, Napoleon operated a level of authoritarian control that even the Third Reich could only dream of. The influence is evident in France to the present day: the government are the officers, the civil servants are the NCOs and are about as much "civil" and "servants" as any NCOs are, and the people are the cannon fodder. Go to a compulsory interview at a French government office and you will feel it.

[NickFitz]

The biggest problem that UK residents have is that you live on an island and you are pretty much stuck with flying just about anywhere outside the UK. That and the public transport is crap and expensive and the roads are always congested around popular centres.

In contrast, mainland Europe has an excellent public transport systems and a road network to match. This gives European folk travel options.

If only they'd do something like, say, build a tunnel under the Channel.

[NickFitz]

I live round the corner from Leeds/Brad.

Yeadon?

[Sysman]

In contrast, mainland Europe has an excellent public transport systems and a road network to match. This gives European folk travel options.

For example, I drove down from my house in The Hague to Vienna on Sunday in about 8 hours, 70 Euros in fuel, no body searches, train/taxi costs, baggage to carry etc.
If I flew, then 3 hours wasted getting to the airport, checking in ,1 and a half hours for the flight, another hour at the other end waiting for my baggage, taxi to the center of Vienna- not much of a time saving, considerably more hassle and cost.

Flying does not have many advantages for mainland Euope travellers, its the getting from UK to anywhere else that is the main issue IMO.

It gets better when you are in central Europe, though the drive back to the UK is obviously more of a grind. There are also night sleeper trains, which I fancy trying out just for fun (Agatha Christie being an obvious choice for reading material).

[Sysman]

That has a lot to do with the extensive town planning which the Germans instigated in the forties.

It's not just town planning . Apparently the Germans instigated this business of registering with your local town hall within so many days of moving to a new address. When they go kicked out of France, the French thought that the system was quite good so kept it. I suspect that the priority from the right rule when driving was originated by the Germans too.

[BoredBloke]

The biggest problem that UK residents have is that you live on an island and you are pretty much stuck with flying just about anywhere outside the UK. That and the public transport is crap and expensive and the roads are always congested around popular centres.

In contrast, mainland Europe has an excellent public transport systems and a road network to match. This gives European folk travel options.

For example, I drove down from my house in The Hague to Vienna on Sunday in about 8 hours, 70 Euros in fuel, no body searches, train/taxi costs, baggage to carry etc.
If I flew, then 3 hours wasted getting to the airport, checking in ,1 and a half hours for the flight, another hour at the other end waiting for my baggage, taxi to the center of Vienna- not much of a time saving, considerably more hassle and cost.

Flying does not have many advantages for mainland Euope travellers, its the getting from UK to anywhere else that is the main issue IMO.

PZZ

That has a lot to do with the extensive town planning which the Germans instigated in the forties.

[pzz76077]

The biggest problem that UK residents have is that you live on an island and you are pretty much stuck with flying just about anywhere outside the UK. That and the public transport is crap and expensive and the roads are always congested around popular centres.

In contrast, mainland Europe has an excellent public transport systems and a road network to match. This gives European folk travel options.

For example, I drove down from my house in The Hague to Vienna on Sunday in about 8 hours, 70 Euros in fuel, no body searches, train/taxi costs, baggage to carry etc.
If I flew, then 3 hours wasted getting to the airport, checking in ,1 and a half hours for the flight, another hour at the other end waiting for my baggage, taxi to the center of Vienna- not much of a time saving, considerably more hassle and cost.

Flying does not have many advantages for mainland Euope travellers, its the getting from UK to anywhere else that is the main issue IMO.

PZZ

[Clippy]

Good programme on BBC4 over the weekend about the plans to move the main London airport away from LHR in the 60s and 70s and to Foulness in the Thames Estuary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_estuary_airport, approved in 1973, scrapped in 1974.

It was part of a (very good) series called The Secret Life of the Airport.

Worth checking out on iplayer if still available.

[MPwannadecentincome]

You are more than welcome to close down the Picadilly Line.... but I am ok with Heathrow.. 1 bus journey from where I live to Heathrow in 1 hour... or a car journey (courtesy of my parents) in 30 minutes. No need to scrap Heathrow thanks.

OK we'll leave it open just for you.

And me - I'm flying from T5 next week

[pmeswani]

So its no good for anyone then - can we close it down?

You are more than welcome to close down the Picadilly Line.... but I am ok with Heathrow.. 1 bus journey from where I live to Heathrow in 1 hour... or a car journey (courtesy of my parents) in 30 minutes. No need to scrap Heathrow thanks.

[Fred Bloggs]

No I'd probably use Manchester or Leeds as the cost of the train would probably be more than the cost of the flight.

Given that the tax on flights often exceeds the cost of the flight itself, then the actual flight is the smallest part of such a trip. Only Gordon Brown and nulabour could ever bring that about, but he has. Having a tax that exceeds the cost of the purchase is immoral IMO.