I have to agree with AttNots in this instance.
From a Geographic, Strategic and (Human) Environmental point of view, it is absolutlely crazy to continue to try cram the majority of flights and business into the already overcrowded southeast corner of the country.
It makes too tempting a target for a terrorist organisation to continue to concentrate everything in the south east corner.
Should, God Forbid, that we ever go to a "formal" war again, bomb this area & you could cripple the country.
If you are unfortunate enough to have to work in this area, I doubt that you can have a high quality of life.
More importantly, in these cash strapped times, I seriously object to any proposal by someone that the government should use some or all of the tax from my hard earned wages to build something that will ultimately benefit one or more foreign private companies.
As an island and a nation, we need to seriously look at diversifying and decentralising where our industry, population and transport links are. There is a balance to be struck between centralisation and de-centralisation & I firmly believe we are at serious risk of irreversible damage to our health & sustainanbility as a nation if we continue with this unhealthy obsession with piling everything into & around the M25 parking lot.
We need to look at better use of the facilities we have nationally and use them more efficiently, looking to expand, gradually and controllably, away from the south east moving gradually out to include Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Dundee, Aberdeen & finally Inverness. As has been pointed out in previous posts, to do this we need to put the other supporting infrastructure in place beforehand.
Heathwick Island, Boris' Gatrow and associated surface or subterranean rail links are and should remain non-starters.