Originally Posted by
North West
Surely the investments in motorway and heavy rail links to MAN have been taxpayer funded to some degree?
Motorways are and the railways should be national assets paid for by the taxpayer as beneficial to all in one way or another. Rail privatisation, especially the way it was done, was and still is a nonsense driven by politics rather than practicalities.
Airports have fallen into either corporate or semi corporate hands. Unless the government nationalises them they should stand on their own two feet unless, like certain highland and island airports, they can demonstrate a social necessity existence.
The problem with the Heathrow proposal is that the government is posturing in such a way as to be seen to be in favour of a development which favours one commercial operator which may be detrimental both to other airport operators around the country and certainly to the greater majority of passengers in the UK regions.
Londoncentricity has been rife in the UK for far longer than my almost 68 years, regardless of the fact that, historically, the Midlands, the North, Scotland and Northern Ireland have been the industrial powerhouses which produced the goods and thus the wealth of the country.
Osborne's Northern Powerhouse initiative is pale in comparison to Cross Rail and the plans for Heathrow and will likely be dropped by the next government of whatever complexion unless the combined local authorities really do both get their act together and make sure that whatever government is in power in June sits up and takes notice.