So we stop progress because of narrow local interest?
No more jobs? No more connectivity?
I hate to spread the word to the regions here but where do you think all the money came from in the good times to build all the schools and hospitals? A Hell of a lot of it came from the flood of talent into London able to get here because of reasonably good connections at Heathrow. The routes were there but the experience was crap! Terminal 5 is changing that experience by the day and the sadly delayed Heathrow East will be a pleasure to use if the lessons of T5 are learnt.
Heathrow is a major part of the UK economy, as it brings money into London. You can take out ALL regional connectivity and that's still true. All those rich bankers bonuses, 40% went in tax to the Government to subsidise the vastly inflated public sector of non jobs and jobsworths. Now we hate bankers, I do too, but the money's stopped flowing. So here's a plan, lets artificially constrain access to the only world gateway we have!
There is life outside the M25 mate, sadly I'm paying for it.
** Note to enraged regional types. I'm not a Londoner I'm a Scot. However I am realistic as to how much money has been "spread" about the UK from London and the South East. Fairs fair, can we have a third runway so our airport works and Crossrail 20 years after it was supposed to be running?