sure, i understand that northolt and heathrow are close, i just dont believe its not possible to make it work (it works at the moment after all, albeit with very few movements at northolt). if you built a new runway, just to the south of the A40, it could be almost exactly east/west, parallel to the LHR approach - just like the third runway being suggested for LHR itself... if that can work - why not this solution? the empty space is there waiting to be used, the infra structure is largely there and we wont have to knock anyone's semi down.
betpump 5, i agree, the time for building an all new airport with a better location than heathrow was in the seventies.
Skipness, its not simplistic to me, the reason the pax/airlines stay at LHR is because it has no proper competition - i'm just floating an expansion of northolt as an idea, but in parallel to that stansted could be DRAMATICALLY improved and then i believe that airlines will move from heathrow, leaving it for BA etc. it would only take a small reduction of the traffic going into LHR to make it run much more efficiently. Also, we're talking about the long term here, you’re assuming that the status quo with BA/STAR running the show is going to continue and although i wish them well, that may not be the case.