Airport expansions

[Shrop]

Having only scanned through this thread I may have missed something, perhaps someone might be kind enough to fill in any gaps if so, and also correct any mistakes in my overall understanding which is as follows.

When HS2 was first proposed it was by Greengauge21 prior to its formal announcement in 2009. They were working with politicians such as Boris Johnson who was then aspiring to become London Mayor, and with ties to the Uxbridge/Heathrow area. He was opposed to a third runway at Heathrow, and the HS2 proposal by Greengauge21 was presented as a major transport development which would remove the need for a third runway, so long as it benefitted Heathrow. This was a major factor in choosing the route heading due west out of London, and having gone that way, this then led to choosing the Chiltern route, with all the problems, objections and extra costs that this brought.

Now we all know that high speed rail doesn’t really benefit from its speed for journeys of less than 200 miles, however Manchester and Leeds are close enough to that distance to not be worth arguing about. The benefits of HS2 were underscored when considering the two-fold arguments, firstly that a new railway was much needed anyway, in order to provide extra capacity to relieve the WCML, and secondly that if you’re going to build a new railway, then the marginal cost of making it high speed means it might as well be just that.

Forward to 2025 and we have a seriously decimated HS2 which won’t be anywhere near 200 miles long, and despite its severely truncated form, it's still several years from completion. Running it directly via Heathrow was discounted many years before construction even started, in favour of just running it somewhere nearby, and linking it to HS1 was similarly discounted many years ago. And yet we now have Heathrow’s third runway actively resurrected to such an extent that it looks highly likely to be built long before HS2 ever reaches either Leeds or Manchester, and possibly before the poor relation of its proper concept even reaches Birmingham.

It's a really sorry indictment of the poor understanding of long term transport needs in the UK, that the very reason for HS2 being routed via West London, ie to avoid the need for a third Heathrow runway, has now not only led to appalling delays and ever spiralling costs, but moreover to HS2 now looking ridiculous in ever more spectacular fashion.

 

[waverley47]

Edinburgh to me will require a big terminal extension if passenger numbers keep rising.

Edinburgh airport has been unfit for purpose in the strongest possible terms for at least a decade.

The whole thing needs razing and rebuilding, which we tried to get through in combination with the Almond Chord, but the owners at the time were an absolute shower of useless profanities.

 

[Magdalia]

It’s all about growth and bugger the consequences.

That's because the consequences of no growth are more severe, the collapse of the public sector finances.

 

[Cross City]

The trouble is that these expansion plans never actually get put to the electorate. They get railroaded through. And even where local planning objects, the national government just overrides them.

Good. NIMBYs have held this country back for decades out of pure selfishness.

 

[weeklycommuter]

The following article in the The Times behind a paywall includes the very startling claim that Heathrow Airport has informally told airlines that the bill for expansion has ballooned to between £42 billion and £63 billion, according to industry sources. If true this would make the cost of building a third runway at Heathrow Airport similar to the cost of building High Speed Two. Gatwick Airport has applied for a Development Consent Order for a second runway and is waiting for the Government to make a decision on this. Heathrow Airport has not so far made any application for a Development Consent Order to build a third runway and it was reported has also been working on alternative proposals for more limited expansion without a third runway.

Why time, not money, may stall Heathrow’s third runway

After years of political opposition, Rachel Reeves is about to support expansion of the airport — but the project must still clear huge financial hurdles

www.thetimes.com

Why time, not money, may stall Heathrow’s third runway

Heathrow has informally told airlines that the bill for expansion has ballooned to between £42 billion and £63 billion, according to industry sources.

AirportWatch | Heathrow new CEO likely to want expansion in numbers, but no new runway

Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow’s new chief executive, is understood to have begun disbanding the 3rd runway team, and the airport's runway plans have been shelved, as leaked details of the airport’s “better not bigger” strategy can be revealed. Woldbye is instead understood to be exploring how to...

www.airportwatch.org.uk

Heathrow third runway shelved as airport seeks to be ‘better not bigger’
Chief executive Thomas Woldbye exploring how to squeeze millions more passengers through the airport without expanding its footprint
By Oliver Gill, The Sunday Times
Sunday February 25 2024

 

[Tetchytyke]

Good. NIMBYs have held this country back for decades out of pure selfishness.

It’s funny how politicians never offer to have the nuclear power station/motorway/airport built in their own garden. Always somebody else’s.

The Heathrow executives aren’t in a rush to live on Myrtle Avenue. I note that you don’t live there either. I wonder why that might be?

Easy to be “the greater good” when you’re not the one having to deal with the consequences.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

Heathrow Airport has informally told airlines that the bill for expansion has ballooned to between £42 billion and £63 billion, according to industry sources. If true this would make the cost of building a third runway at Heathrow Airport similar to the cost of building High Speed Two.

When you look at everything that currently occupies the land that they want to build the runway on, it isn’t a surprise. Not just the homes but the businesses, the river, the M25, it’s not going to be cheap.

There’s also no incentive on Heathrow to keep costs down as they can pass everything on to the airlines in landing fees.

 

[Wolfie]

Heathrow is a brilliant place for an airport. It's why airlines will spend millions and millions of pounds on slots there.

Right on the M4 corridor. On the Underground and Liz line. Relatively close to central London.


It's a significantly smaller and poorer market than Manchester.

Enough to sustain sun flights across Europe with multiple airlines? Yes.

But that doesn't distract from the facts.

Also, Manchester is more centrally located for north, Yorkshire, the north Midlands. Liverpool is next to the sea.



Well, for one, they aren't.

And secondly, airlines and passengers will vote with their wallets.



Airports are huge job creators. Yes, some will be cleaning bogs. But there are also lots of better paid jobs.

Even 'menial' jobs like security start at £14.21 at Heathrow. Not a bad wage for a job with no qualification requirements.

There are then plenty of better paid more skilled jobs.

Anyone who says that Heathrow is in a brilliant place for an airport doesn't live in London. Once again London is expected to suffer for the rest of the country.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

It imposes misery and substantial negative health impacts on literally millions of people.

The externalities imposed on the population by Heathrow far exceed any benefits from its location.


Essentially every job in the UK starts at £11.44, £12.21 from April.
Airports are hardly unusually well paying in that regard.

Reeves better expect massive legal action and civil disobedience on a scale never seen before. All of those London Labour MPs including Starmer can start sweating over their jobs too.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

Heathrow has been used commercially since 1946.
Gatwick since 1933.
It's a fundamental issue. Why buy a house/ move near an airport and then complain about the noise?

No different to my grandparents who moved to a totally different area near a nuclear power station and started campaigning against a new reactor being built there. Plane stupid and morally wrong.

Plus modern jets are significantly quieter and more efficient than the planes of the 70s. The 737 Max or A350 are incomparable in their noise profile to equivalent sized 727 or 747-200.
No doubt the next gen will be better again.



That salary has been in a place for a while. So just under £3 higher than minimum wage. Not bad for a starting salary in a job which requires no qualifications or prior experience.

Your first part shows that you have no clue. You can live literally anywhere in London and have to suffer aircraft noise because of the flight paths. I certainly do in Islington.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

Good. NIMBYism is a cancer upon this country and history tells us the best way to grow the economy is investing in much needed infrastructure projects.

We missed the boat on high speed rail in the 70s, missed the boat on new airports, missed the boat on regional metro/light rail projects, and missed the boat on motorway building. Time to drag us back into the modern world.

Rip up the green belt, planning and appeals laws and build a five or six of million houses, a couple of airports and a few more HS rail lines.

What a complete dystopian cluster-**** that would be. Welcome to hell on earth.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

I don't need to get over it but the UK government has a legal commitment to deliver it?

... and the Courts have repeatedly taken a dim view of attempts to avoid that commitment.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

Ah climate, the biggest load of bolloxology since we were all told that we’d kill each other if we stood within two meters of anyone else. Both primarily designed to keep us all in our places. What’s the alternative to allowing air transport to grow? Constrain demand through state-mandated prices hikes? Refuse to develop additional infrastructure? Those approaches are so blinkered. The human race doesn’t make progress and improve through being inhibited, restricted and taxed. It does so by being allowed to unfetteredly grow and innovate. Until we accept this and let go of the net zero lunacy, the UK will have one massive hand tied behind its back. Trump seems to know what‘s needed - sadly the UK government seems not to want to know.

Oh my, one in the flesh! Let's completely ignore all of the increasing practical impacts of what you claim isn't happening.

Frankly l don't want to bequeath my daughter with the sort of hellhole planet that would result.

Obviously you have zero powers of observation to go with your equally questionable logical processes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

Good. NIMBYs have held this country back for decades out of pure selfishness.

Easy to say when you aren't the ones having your life ruined.

 

[Skymonster]

Reeves better expect massive legal action and civil disobedience on a scale never seen before.

Oh here we go… We collectively and democratically elect a government. I am sick of individuals and minority groups that think their opinion or will should override that of the body we’ve all chosen to make decisions for the nation. They are a true cancer. If anyone disagrees with policy there are ways and means to doing it - those ways do not include civil disobedience or even legal action with do-goody lawyers who are really only in it to make money. No, you get enough MPs on your side get the sitting government out, and then hope a party sympathetic to your cause gets elected in its place. Those who engage in civil disobedience have just one place in my opinion - jail.

Oh my, one in the flesh! Let's completely ignore all of the increasing practical impacts of what you claim isn't happening.

The planet has been warming up since the ice age - the clue is in the word ice, it was cold all the time. Now its not. Things change, we can’t stop it, its been underway for eons. The human race never evolves and progresses with artificial restrictions and restraint; it develops through unfettered innovation. It needs access to cheap energy (as opposed to expensive, unreliable renewables), and air travel that allows us all to share and learn from each other across the globe. The UK is already becoming a backwater because its operating with at least one hand tied behind its back, beholden to idealogical and misguided climate change campaigners, while other nations continue to develop on the back of things like cheap energy and lack of restrictions.

But by all means you stay within your little box, content to stagnate rather than innovate. Play the role of a modern day King Canute. Just like him, what you want is futile and you won’t achieve your goal. And don’t expect the people who want more for themselves, the nation and the world, to be so blinkered. Heathrow expansion is a key part of our future for us to stay in the game. What we now need is a realist in charge, someone more focused like Trump. The press reports over the weekend suggesting that the government may approve Heathrow expansion gives me a degree of hope.

 

[Cross City]

It’s funny how politicians never offer to have the nuclear power station/motorway/airport built in their own garden. Always somebody else’s.

The Heathrow executives aren’t in a rush to live on Myrtle Avenue. I note that you don’t live there either. I wonder why that might be?

Easy to be “the greater good” when you’re not the one having to deal with the consequences.

You know nothing of what I do or what I'd like. Not that I need to justify myself to you but if I worked at Heathrow somewhere like Myrtle Ave would be ideal.

I'd gladly welcome vital infrastructure near my home FWIW.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

Easy to say when you aren't the ones having your life ruined.

Nobody is having their life ruined.

If you don't liek airprots don't bloody live next to one of the busiest ones in the world to start with.

These are the same idiots who move next to pubs and concert venues and moan about noise, selfishly ruining it for the rest of us. Utterly insufferable people of the highest order.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

What a complete dystopian cluster-**** that would be. Welcome to hell on earth.

Diddums. One person's hell is another's heaven. I'd much rather people had places to live than letting a few fields go to waste.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

Reeves better expect massive legal action and civil disobedience on a scale never seen before. All of those London Labour MPs including Starmer can start sweating over their jobs too.

People love trotting out this line but they're never the ones to actually go out and protest, let alone actually start anything.

Nobody is going to riot over a runway at an airport.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Nobody is having their life ruined.

Around 800 homes will be bulldozed as part of the plans; two villages that predate Heathrow by hundreds of years will be obliterated. So that's a good couple of thousand people having their lives ruined for starters.

On top of that, a good chunk of the businesses along Bath Road will be bulldozed too. I’m sure the big hotels will take the money and move but there are smaller businesses along there that won’t find it so easy to move.

As for the wider effects, people who weren’t living right next to an airport will suddenly find that they are now living right next to an airport. The footprint of Heathrow would, under the plans, extend about four miles to the north west. Places like Langley aren’t right next to Heathrow now but they will be if the plans are granted.

There’s also the impact of increased noise across more of London. I used to get the noise in Muswell Hill which is only 25 miles or so from Heathrow. A third runway creates new flight paths across north and south London, spreading the noise to suburbs both far from Heathrow and also previously not under flight paths.

It’ll be the same if City are allowed to change the flight paths into their airport. Bigger and more noisier planes for the locals who were vociferously opposed to the airport expanding in the first place.

You know nothing of what I do or what I'd like.

Do you live right next to a motorway/airport/nuclear power station? If not, why not?

 

[Wolfie]

You know nothing of what I do or what I'd like. Not that I need to justify myself to you but if I worked at Heathrow somewhere like Myrtle Ave would be ideal.

I'd gladly welcome vital infrastructure near my home FWIW.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==



Nobody is having their life ruined.

If you don't liek airprots don't bloody live next to one of the busiest ones in the world to start with.

These are the same idiots who move next to pubs and concert venues and moan about noise, selfishly ruining it for the rest of us. Utterly insufferable people of the highest order.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==



Diddums. One person's hell is another's heaven. I'd much rather people had places to live than letting a few fields go to waste.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==



People love trotting out this line but they're never the ones to actually go out and protest, let alone actually start anything.

Nobody is going to riot over a runway at an airport.

Which part of my saying that l live in Islington suggests that l live anywhere particularly near to Heathrow? Yet l already get flight noise rather too often. Oh and yes l will be out protesting if this idiocy progresses.

Doubtless you are another of those people only too bloody happy to let others suffer for your benefit. Hopefully a piece of major infrastructure will be dumped on your own doorstep.....

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

Oh here we go… We collectively and democratically elect a government. I am sick of individuals and minority groups that think their opinion or will should override that of the body we’ve all chosen to make decisions for the nation. They are a true cancer. If anyone disagrees with policy there are ways and means to doing it - those ways do not include civil disobedience or even legal action with do-goody lawyers who are really only in it to make money. No, you get enough MPs on your side get the sitting government out, and then hope a party sympathetic to your cause gets elected in its place. Those who engage in civil disobedience have just one place in my opinion - jail.


The planet has been warming up since the ice age - the clue is in the word ice, it was cold all the time. Now its not. Things change, we can’t stop it, its been underway for eons. The human race never evolves and progresses with artificial restrictions and restraint; it develops through unfettered innovation. It needs access to cheap energy (as opposed to expensive, unreliable renewables), and air travel that allows us all to share and learn from each other across the globe. The UK is already becoming a backwater because its operating with at least one hand tied behind its back, beholden to idealogical and misguided climate change campaigners, while other nations continue to develop on the back of things like cheap energy and lack of restrictions.

But by all means you stay within your little box, content to stagnate rather than innovate. Play the role of a modern day King Canute. Just like him, what you want is futile and you won’t achieve your goal. And don’t expect the people who want more for themselves, the nation and the world, to be so blinkered. Heathrow expansion is a key part of our future for us to stay in the game. What we now need is a realist in charge, someone more focused like Trump. The press reports over the weekend suggesting that the government may approve Heathrow expansion gives me a degree of hope.

Ignore science and evidence for right-wing pseudo-economic claptrap

 

[camflyer]

Around 800 homes will be bulldozed as part of the plans; two villages that predate Heathrow by hundreds of years will be obliterated. So that's a good couple of thousand people having their lives ruined for starters.

On top of that, a good chunk of the businesses along Bath Road will be bulldozed too. I’m sure the big hotels will take the money and move but there are smaller businesses along there that won’t find it so easy to move.

If Heathrow pays (above market price) for these people to move away from such a noisy airport then how is that ruining their lives? Surely it would make them better. Anyway, I thought HAL already owned a lot of those properties and rented them out to airport workers.

Of course one of the businesses affected would be BA as their HQ is along the Bath Road. One of the reasons they have always been lukewarm about a third runway. That an increased landing costs to pay for it and increased competition and their base.

 

[Skymonster]

l already get flight noise rather too often.

Islington is quite a way from the airport and only under one of the approach routes to Heathrow. That’s where aircraft engines are at low / idle power, and quiet. Departure paths, where engines are producing more power, don’t go anywhere near. So what difference do aircraft descending above you make to your life? In reality, I suspect pretty much none.

As I said previously, I live within earshot of the busiest runway in the country during the overnight period. Do the planes arriving and departing in the early hours have any detrimental effect on me, my health or or my sleep? Nope, none at all - not even with the windows open. I’m far more bothered by dogs yapping or neighbours sitting chatting in their gardens at or after dark in summer.

I suspect you cry wolf because you‘ve jumped on the green agenda and think its fashionable to try to demand restrictions on the growth of the aviation market. Fight Heathrow expansion all you like: those who refuse to respect the decision making process of a democratically elected government will always, ultimately, fail. And hopefully if they become too assertive will be confined / restricted.

 

[Cross City]

Around 800 homes will be bulldozed as part of the plans; two villages that predate Heathrow by hundreds of years will be obliterated. So that's a good couple of thousand people having their lives ruined for starters.

Being paid handsomly to move does not equal 'having your life ruined'

Do you live right next to a motorway/airport/nuclear power station? If not, why not?

Motorway, I live within earshot of 2. Less than 1/4 mile. Noise is barely noticeable.

Airport, previously lived within 1/2 a mile of the perimeter fence at BHX for 15 years. I enjoyed the noise and watching the planes.

Nuclear power station, none where I've previously lived, wouldn't bother me if one was close to my home.

 

[Wolfie]

Islington is quite a way from the airport and only under one of the approach routes to Heathrow. That’s where aircraft engines are at low / idle power, and quiet. Departure paths, where engines are producing more power, don’t go anywhere near. So what difference do aircraft descending above you make to your life? In reality, I suspect pretty much none.

As I said previously, I live within earshot of the busiest runway in the country during the overnight period. Do the planes arriving and departing in the early hours have any detrimental effect on me, my health or or my sleep? Nope, none at all - not even with the windows open. I’m far more bothered by dogs yapping or neighbours sitting chatting in their gardens at or after dark in summer.

I suspect you cry wolf because you‘ve jumped on the green agenda and think its fashionable to try to demand restrictions on the growth of the aviation market. Fight Heathrow expansion all you like: those who refuse to respect the decision making process of a democratically elected government will always, ultimately, fail. And hopefully if they become too assertive will be confined / restricted.

Hmmm.... civil disobedience has a long and distinguished history in this country. See for example the Tolpuddle martyrs and Suffragettes for two, not to mention gay and anti-racism. Often their "extreme" positions become the orthodoxy within a relatively short time.

I never claimed to have major issues with aircraft noise myself but don't desperately appreciate the summer early morning wake-ups particularly when l have a diagnosed sleep disorder.

 

[Cross City]

Oh and yes l will be out protesting if this idiocy progresses.

Doubt it

Doubtless you are another of those people only too bloody happy to let others suffer for your benefit.

Evidently you're too selfish that you'd oppose something of national importance. Ie, you let tyhe economy, and therefore the country, suffer for your own benefit.

Hopefully a piece of major infrastructure will be dumped on your own doorstep.....

Lived near an airport for over a decade, currently live next to two major motorways. Doesn't bother me in the slightest, because I'm not a NIMBY.

 

[Wolfie]

Doubt it



Evidently you're too selfish that you'd oppose something of national importance. Ie, you let tyhe economy, and therefore the country, suffer for your own benefit.



Lived near an airport for over a decade, currently live next to two major motorways. Doesn't bother me in the slightest, because I'm not a NIMBY.

Since you have no clue about me and what l may or may not have done for this country....

 

[Meerkat]

That's because the consequences of no growth are more severe, the collapse of the public sector finances.

That’s hysteria. Not building the third runway will not cause that.

Good. NIMBYs have held this country back for decades out of pure selfishness.

It’s selfish to want to leave a better environment for those after us?

If you don't liek airprots don't bloody live next to one of the busiest ones in the world to start with.

Firstly a great number of those affected will have been born there.
Secondly a third runway will significantly increase the number of those affected

And no one has explained how the roads , particularly the M25, is supposed to cope.

 

[Cross City]

Since you have no clue about me and what l may or may not have done for this country....

Maybe you should've thought about it before making assumptions of others.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

And no one has explained how the roads , particularly the M25, is supposed to cope.

It's in the plans. See any article about it.

 

[camflyer]

Motorway, I live within earshot of 2. Less than 1/4 mile. Noise is barely noticeable.

Airport, previously lived within 1/2 a mile of the perimeter fence at BHX for 15 years. I enjoyed the noise and watching the planes.

Nuclear power station, none where I've previously lived, wouldn't bother me if one was close to my home.

I grew up near Hartlepool nuclear power station and it didn't bother us at all. Much getter than a coal/gas power station.

I've also lived with my back garden next to the ECML. You get used to it.

There are also some advantages of living near an airport including job opportunities and easy access to flights without paying for expensive parking, taxis or train fares.

 

[Magdalia]

That’s hysteria.

It is not hysteria. It is the assessment of the Office for Budget Responsibility, see here:

OBR fiscal risks and sustainability report

Various recent discussions have touched upon the state of the UK public finances, in relation to matters such as pensioners' winter fuel allowance, public sector pay, and public funds available for investment in transport infrastructure. Today the Office for Budget Responsibility has published...

www.railforums.co.uk

It really is the case that without return to 2.5% per annum economic growth the UK public finances are unsustainable.



== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

Not building the third runway will not cause that.

Though I happen to agree that a third runway at Heathrow is not high priority for delivering that economic growth.

 

[Cross City]

Though I happen to agree that a third runway at Heathrow is not high priority for delivering that economic growth.

Building things is evident historically to be the best way to improve a nation's finances.

 

[Magdalia]

Building things is evident historically to be the best way to improve a nation's finances.

But it is building the right things, especially as the UK has limited construction capacity.

As I've said before, the thing that worries me most about Heathrow is it absorbing too much construction industry capacity and crowding out other higher priority projects.

I'm very much in favour of building things but I don't think a third runway at Heathrow is a priority.

 

[och aye]

Edinburgh airport has been unfit for purpose in the strongest possible terms for at least a decade.

The whole thing needs razing and rebuilding, which we tried to get through in combination with the Almond Chord, but the owners at the time were an absolute shower of useless profanities.

Can you expand on that? I wasn't aware there was a proposal to rebuild the airport terminal in combination with the Almond Chord? Was this anything to do with EARL, when it was still proposed?

Given the increase in passenger traffic at the airport, the owners (VINCI Airports/GIP) are predicting 20 million passengers by 2030, do you think there is a chance in the 2030s that EARL or a new form of EARL could/should be built in the next decade?

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Can you expand on that? I wasn't aware there was a proposal to rebuild the airport terminal in combination with the Almond Chord? Was this anything to do with EARL, when it was still proposed?

Given the increase in passenger traffic at the airport, the owners (VINCI Airports/GIP) are predicting 20 million passengers by 2030, do you think there is a chance in the 2030s that EARL or a new form of EARL could/should be built in the next decade?

I think they should close both Edinburgh and Glasgow and build a new combined airport halfway between the two.

 

[waverley47]

Can you expand on that? I wasn't aware there was a proposal to rebuild the airport terminal in combination with the Almond Chord? Was this anything to do with EARL, when it was still proposed?

Given the increase in passenger traffic at the airport, the owners (VINCI Airports/GIP) are predicting 20 million passengers by 2030, do you think there is a chance in the 2030s that EARL or a new form of EARL could/should be built in the next decade?

We told them that we had an infrastructure scheme on the horizon that would be changing the way that public transport interacts with Edinburgh Airport, and perhaps, would they want to be involved?

There was no proposal, no plan, just a single meeting where we said "this is broadly what we are planning, and we can all agree that your current terminal at EDI is inadequate for the present, let alone future growth, so would you like to be involved in this project? We can tie in rail infrastructure with any plans you have for expansion, you get to tick boxes for public transport connectivity, you ease the pressure on the road access, and you don't even have to commit to spending any money."

They told us in no uncertain terms that they were happy with the current set up and they didn't want to be involved.

We went back with a developed EARL, and they weren't enthusiastic; from what we gathered, they make too much money off road vehicle access. We stopped trying after that.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jan 2025 ==

I think they should close both Edinburgh and Glasgow and build a new combined airport halfway between the two.

While I for one would be comfortable demolishing half of Falkirk for such a plan, I'm not sure the citizens of that good town would share my sentiment.

 

[nlogax]

As the existing LCY expansion thread is now closed this feels like the place for an interesting update. One side effect may be a slight reduction in pressure on other London airports to expand, though if so I feel sorry for thousands of people in easy London.

https://www.flightglobal.com/air-tr...e-to-enable-a320neo-operations/161529.article

London City airport’s operator is seeking permission for Airbus A320neo twinjets to operate from the facility, using specially-authorised flight procedures.
The airport has a characteristic steep-approach glideslope and carriers typically use smaller models including Embraer E-Jets as well as the A220.

British Airways previously used A318s from the airport, although these were configured with just 32 seats for transatlantic services. But the airport’s operator says it will seek approval for a Required Navigation Performance Authorisation Required – or RNP AR – procedure from the UK civil aviation regulator, to grant access to the A320neo.

 

[TravelDream]

That already happens with Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects using Development Consent Orders.

Much further than that.
All international airports should be considered national infrastructure and, as such, local councils should have no say whatsoever any on any planning matters.

Reeves better expect massive legal action and civil disobedience on a scale never seen before. All of those London Labour MPs including Starmer can start sweating over their jobs too.

a) We need primary legislation to avoid the legal action. Simple. As said above, some elements of that are already in the works.
b) The second point is crackers. The weirdos and oddballs in those eco-terrorist groups might act, but that can easily be quashed by prosecuting these crimes for what they are. Normal people (i.e. the 99.9% are supportive of growth and development).
c) The third point is just stupid. Heathrow expansion will have an electoral affect in, what, 5-10 constituencies at most. Starmer will be fine. Oh, and no you aren't affected by airplane noise so far from the airport.

 

[Meerkat]

It's in the plans. See any article about it.

Please paraphrase how M25 capacity will be increased, NOT just how it will be stuck in a tunnel.

It is not hysteria. It is the assessment of the Office for Budget Responsibility, see here:

It’s hysteria that not building Heathrow will make a significant differenc.

Building things is evident historically to be the best way to improve a nation's finances.

Building the right stuff maybe, not just building anything.

Normal people (i.e. the 99.9% are supportive of growth and development).

Cn you show polling that 99.9% would support the 3rd runway?

 

[Magdalia]

It’s hysteria that not building Heathrow will make a significant differenc.
Building the right stuff maybe, not just building anything.

I think that we are in agreement that we need to build the right things, and a Heathrow third runway isn't one of them.