It is with a healthy sense of relief that we all welcomed the coalition’s decision to launch a commission into the future of aviation. Maria Eagle only called for this a year ago so the Tories are catching up at last! However, the two options most regularly bandied about are as unpalatable as each other.
Expanding Heathrow is a futile exercise in short-termism and caving in to the usual self-serving interests. Boris Island is the wrong side of London for the rest of the country. It also has birds and bombs and fog going against it.
We do need to utilise more aviation capacity but we do have plenty already across the rest of the country. The problem is that it isn’t used because Heathrow and the other London airports suck the demand to them and thus all the routes are from those airports only.
Aviation policy needs to be actively long term in view and strategic in approach. We cannot go on expanding Heathrow indefinitely and so need to look at building up other airports to support and complement Heathrow.
The first step needed is to recognise the need for a national long term transport infrastructure vision. The next step is to recognise that aviation policy must be integrated with the developing national high speed rail network.
High speed rail will connect Heathrow, Birmingham, Manchester and east Midlands airports. So these airports will be interconnected and significantly closer together (and easier to interchange between) as a result of high speed rail. We can then plan for integrated air/rail ticketing and door to door journeys using high speed rail as inter-airport transit providing more options and connectivity for travellers.
The next step is then to improve the other three airports with more capacity being used and indeed significantly improving those airports. For starters, a new Birmingham airport next door to the new HS2 station with, potentially, four runways and status as a major international hub airport would provide a truly national airport in the heart of the country that the whole country can use.
Why have one hub airport at Heathrow when we could have four that serve the whole country rather than just London and the south-east? Why believe the mantra that it is Heathrow or bust? If Germany has six hub airports why must Britain only have Heathrow? Why are we beholden to Heathrow and to London as the only place for aviation in the country?
A long term plan for investing in and developing our transport infrastructure is long overdue. A plan that is highly strategic and sets out a route map for developing our transport network in a way that provides significant support for economic growth across the whole country, that provides accessibility and connectivity for the whole country in the best way possible, that supports a sustainable future for Britain – that is positive for the long-term health and wealth of all of Britain.
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Alex Burrows is a candidate in the members’ section in the Progress strategy board elections 2012. You can find out more about all the candidates at the dedicated Progress strategy board election microsite
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a futile exercise in short-termism and caving in to the usual self-serving interests.”
No. The reason that Heathrow is favoured is because it hub. No one in New York is going to choose to get a flight via Birmingham if they then have to get a train to Manchester for the next leg of their flight.
as i do say, we can have more than 1 hub airport in the country. check out the German experience with 6 hub airports and utilising high speed rail between them to great effect – clear evidence.
You mention that High Speed Rail will connect Heathrow, Birmingham, Manchester and East Midlands Airports, but you do not mention that the spurs out to Heathrow and Manchester will not be completed until 2033 and in the case of Manchester the High Speed will not stop at the airport. We need action now to prevent us from slipping further behind other European competitors.