My point was that the sheer number of people exposed to high noise levels around LHR is still far greater than anywhere else - as an outright figure, even if the noise is slowly declining.
This is true, LHR noise over Central and West London is a pain for a lot of people, myself included, indeed I have LCY departures and LHR arrivals to contend with on Westerlies. However it is manageable for me, I knew that when I moved here. This whole debate has a child like quality. People want power without power stations public services with low levels of tax coupled with the ability to drink like a fish without liver failure whilst shagging in an STD free sort of way pretending their drug problem is under control. We need at least one hub that works, there are no magic lands undiscovered to build it from scratch. Anyone pointing at LGW and STN does not understand how a commercial market works with reference to a strategic hub airport of national importance.
When people say "government help" they just mean fling more taxpayers dosh at it and see if that helps. all it does is temporarily skew the market.
It's LHR for the future, stop looking at what's being
said, look at what's being
done.
Crossrail and the investment to LHR
Terminal 5 and term of depreciation
Terminal 2 and term of depreciation
Only in the last week, people are now seriously floating the idea of a fourth runway at Heathrow, something I thought we'd never see. For Fantasy Island to work, you have to close LHR, no question in my view. You then need to pay BAA, a major sum of money above and beyond the market rate of the land, at the end of a fairly long court case I would guess, then write off all investment in Crossrail at LHR, the Heathrow Express and Connect then demolish the still new Terminal 5 and Terminal 2. Can you see HMG writing that sort of a cheque AND financing the building of a concerete floating island off the east coast.
Then you have the political and economic fall out from decoupling the M4 corridor from access to the national hub, the raison d'etre of many of the industries and jobs therein. You have just done that, in an era of mobile globalisation????
For the sake of what? SIPSON? I mean I have been there, it's not worth quite that amount of money I have to say.
Look the public thinks the Bank of England just prints money and HMG doles it out, responsible people take tough decisions, I respected many in the last government for the unpopular stance on LHR expansion, it's taking this government a little too long to learn the ropes.
Will this thread ever die I wonder?