Mr Mac you are soooo right! That is a very neat setting out of the British Disease of capital project development. The MoD still haven't learnt how to do this. (Do you remember when it was discovered that they paid extra to have their own recipe of Baked Beans made and canned?)
Everyone knows that we have enough London airports and in pretty good places. What took ages to develop was good rail links to them and, for EGLL, there is still no mainline station or any realistic prospect of one!
For better or for worse, we allow lots of people to protest and, consequently, our infrastructure is decades behind others. The examples given of the Shinkansen are useful and there are many others. Lastly, if this project gets the go ahead, it will be as a private company and the chances of that going bust are very, very high.