Whether you inflict the levels of air and noise pollution already suffered by west Londoners on Crawley, tarmac a slice out of the Thames Valley, or bulldoze Harmondsworth and Sipson, no one has really won today.
For residents in west London, who have already suffered decades of indecision, the Davies commission interim report is grim reading. The prospect of expansion at Heathrow is the Christmas present we all wish we still had the receipt for.
But for those of us who back a fairer distribution of runways across London, like Labour at City Hall, buried beneath the exchanging blows being landed by all sides of the aviation debate today is a glimmer of hope.
Whilst it is undeniable that the UK needs a hub airport to maintain our connections to emerging economies by pooling air traffic from across Europe, Davies proposed option of expansion at Gatwick reflects the questioning of whether our capacity crunch is as pronounced as first envisaged.
Whilst the tarmac is certainly running out, citing revised air travel estimates, the new phenomena of passengers ‘self-hubbing’ through the usual long-haul carriers and cheaper short-hop flights, Davies made clear that to solve the capacity issue, London needs a mix. A balance of hub-and-spoke capacity, like that provided at Heathrow, and point-to-point capacity, like that provided at Gatwick.
But with hope also comes great disappointment. ‘Margaret Thatcher Airport’ still lives, and is set to haunt west London for at least another year. The commission was crystal clear. To build on the Isle of Grain, not only would you need to shut down Heathrow, but London City too. At least with the mayor’s preferred third option of the in-land Boris Island at Stansted, which would lead to the downgrading of Luton, City and Heathrow, the commission has simply ruled it out.
Earlier last week a coalition of Labour Councils made plain the impact that the downgrading or closure of Heathrow would have on their Boroughs. With jobs on and just off the airport, alongside the jobs generated by Heathrow’s location factored in, some 114,000 jobs would go. Ealing would witness 10% of its jobs disappear, with Hounslow and Slough being decimated by the loss of 28% and 29% of all jobs held by their residents respectively.
With the largest loss of employment second only to the loss of London’s Docklands 150,000 jobs over 10 years, it is striking that the mayor is advocating the kind of economic destruction in west London on a scale that east London has still yet to recover from. That Hillingdon and Richmond are backing the mayor up on the empty promise of 45,000 to 200,000 mythical jobs created on the site of a closed Heathrow Airport, its great wonder that this hasn’t received the attention that BAE Systems 2,000 job cuts on the Cylde and in Portsmouth have received.
So if prizes were being awarded today, the wooden spoon would be clutched firmly in the hands of the mayor of London. Not only has the mayor poured £3 million of Londoners’ money into pushing Boris Island, of the three options he put forward to Davies none of them have yet made the final cut.
So whilst the coastline Boris airport may be in his words ‘not yet dead’ it is certainly heading toward joining an illustrious list of mayoral failures. First came the cable car with its anti-Israel contract and just four regular users. Then came his new bus with a huge price tag beset with tropical heat after breakdown, soon followed the Barclays bike sponsorship calamity.
As I made clear for Progress earlier this year, Heathrow’s future will be one of the defining issues that will influence the outcome of the next election in seats across the outer London Boroughs and beyond. In Rochester and Strood, where the Isle of Grain is located, along with tens of Essex and Kent constituencies, the knives will be out to stop Boris building. In Richmond Park and other flight-path constituencies that don’t feel the benefit of Heathrow, you can bet on strong and vocal opposition. But thanks to the mayor’s plans to shut Heathrow down, the loss of over 114,000 jobs will be a new and untested issue at play in vast swathes of west London, Surrey and Berkshire.
It’s understandable that the Mayor today in his tour of television studios, whilst lashing out at the main driver of economic prosperity in west London, is desperately trying to revive his airport plans. His fear, and justifiably so, will be that with a record like his to stand on, he isn’t just fighting for the survival of his airport, but to keep his leadership ambitions alive.
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