Thanks for the definitive answer Weasil. I think some people here are just completeply change fatigued. This is the 5th attempt at major airspace change over here in the last decade or so. The others have all been beaten down by the inevitible fact that somebody, somewhere, can find an ugly safety issue that can't be mitigated through our torturous safety process; or some inconvenienced minority achieves enough coverage to embarrass or terrorfy somebody into abandoning the change. Or something really bad happens that captures the public's attention.
The people that have introduced the current change set their groundwork well.
They have the Aviation minister bent over a barrel and his @rse greased (by the threat of a popular independant who would have creamed him in our last election, but stood aside at the last minute, around when the minister gained an interest in airspace reform...) so he 100% backs up the proponents.
The safety process has a loophole that you don't have to use it if you adopt something from overseas that seems to work. Hence what we get is supposedly based on your airspace & services.
Next they got themselves made the final arbiter (by the minister) over what is or isn't done over there, and what is done in the way of airspace. Every bit of "consultation" that has occurred is prefaced by the comment: "Nothing you say will actually change anything in the model".
The result: the ARG has the final say over whether something will be implemented, they have the final say over whatever they implement is what is done over there, and they have the final say regarding the safety or neccessity over any introduced element.
I only embarked on this diatribe for one reason, here is another way we have departed from your model. You allow block level clearances in E, we don't (for civil aircraft). How can they claim greater efficiency from the new airspace? When such issues are raised with the project we are accused of dinosaurism and job-protection
