Head Turner
Whilst Battersea is far from ideally located - it is there. Depending on traffic of course it is 20 - 30mins from the West End. It is very slick to land at and critically takes less than a minute from leaving the heli to getting in a car and departing. Normally to the door of your destination. And if you do have to wait, there's a nice lounge - usually to yourself.
Now compare that with the reality of your high speed rail link. How long will it take you to actually get on the train from the heliport? How private will the train be (assuming there's a signal at all) for the inevitable calls? And how far from your destination will it take you? And how will you travel the last leg?
I could go on. Battersea is vey expensive but at the end of the day it's a market economy. If they really are close to the planning movement limit who can blame them for upping fees? The only logical business approach.
The danger, I feel, is if they overcook it, and movements go down below the limits, public and the Council could say there is diminishing necessity and push movement limits down further. It is important to continue to prove how crucial it is for London to have a heliport by maintaining volume - and pushing for more.
If I owned Batteresa heliport and was motivated to safeguard and develop its future as a heliport, I'd be looking very hard at working up proposals to increase movements by introducing an element of recognition of the noise emission for various types. I should think one S76 is about as disturbing as four EC135s for example. To an extent this occurs with the fee scale but that doesn't help get more landings.
It would be interesting to know exactly what Battersea's annual movement limits actually are - any offers?