And a brief response to Fairdealfrank
Investment from the government for transport infrastructure is also always welcome and also desperately needed, so why is it an issue in relation to Heathrow, but not, say, in relation to Ringway?
The issue here is two-fold. Firstly, the scale of the projected public-funding requirement relating to LHR R3 in absolute terms. And secondly, the fact that ALL recent large-scale [£1Bn+] public-investment in infrastructure initiatives has gone exclusively to projects located in London and the SE. There are a number of compelling infrastructure priorities in the regions which deserve their own bite of public funding before the SE feasts yet again on national resources.
Incidentally, the type of projects I'm referring to are the recently-proposed HS3, a transpennine motorway linking Sheffield with cities west of the Pennines, and a complete replacement for Liverpool Lime Street Station with its massively-congested Victorian bottleneck approaches. Other regions put forward similar compelling projects, though I'll let people more familiar with those regions outline their own priorities. BTW, I'm not aware of any move from MAN to request large-scale public-funding from the exchequer at this time. The proposals for the terminals redevelopment project call for private-sector financing.