If you want to debate me, you must do so at the level of the arguments I present, not on silly notions which you would love me to argue but which I never will
I'll make you a deal Shed. You stop being so patronising and I'll happily have a debate with you - after all decisions of such national significance don't happen too often. What I won't do is apologise for trying to understand and interpret the underlying rationale behind some of the arguments made by you and others over the expansion of Heathrow. Trying to 'read between the lines' is part of my day job, but if it keeps you happy I'll try to refrain from doing so and stick to the literal text.
Having said that, my feelings on the matter (which you are so dismissive of) are formed in part by observing some of the 'outrage' expressed when the Airports Commission decided that Manchester wasn't the answer to the problem it had decided it was looking to solve (which I grant you isn't necessarily the problem they were originally asked to look in to), and the subsequent assertions that public funds shouldn't be spent facilitating south east airport expansion but be spent in the North (which does in the current wider narrative increasingly mean Greater Manchester). It may be a case of adding 2 and 2 and getting 5 but it's a reasonable assumption to make.
By the way, there are no grounds for confusion concerning my stance on the costs issue. My earlier postings make it abundantly clear to any reader that I object to the publicly-funded proportion of the overall proposed cost attached to LHR R3.
For the avoidance of doubt, can you clarify what figure you understand the confirmed level of public funding in the project to be - and your source? Also, do you have a view on what would be a 'fair' price to pay to expand Heathrow?
It is a free market. Each to their own. Good luck to you. I hope your domestic connection doesn't get cancelled. Enjoy the tedious double security-screening experience. And the stressful terminal transfer if your onward flight doesn't happen to operate from T5
Presumably, at some point in the past, you've had a poor experience at LHR? You may be reassured to know that the 2013 CAA passenger survey recorded an 87% satisfaction rate with LHR, and Heathrow was voted 3rd best airport in Europe and 8th in the world in the 2014 Skytrax awards. So thankfully most passengers don't seem to suffer the experience you did.
Long overdue alternative investments in regional infrastructure priorities offer much better ROI to the taxpayer than yet more initiatives in the SE in the medium-term
Sadly Shed this isn't the case and never will be until DfT is persuaded to change the way it measures Benefit Cost Ratio (their version of ROI). It's basically why other areas of the country always fall to the back of the queue - the appraisal system is stacked against them.
By the way, in terms of your issue around quotes, if you insert "quote" at the start of the text you want to quote and "/quote" at the end (but swap the "" for [ ]) it
should show up with the blue box (I had to use " " as using [ ] makes the quote function work!)