Heathrow want to expand their airport in order to create a hub.
Somehow along the lines this was turned into a need for an extra runway being needed somewhere in the south east.
That is because traffic growth originating in the SE itself is the business which London's airports system
must continue to accommodate, and there are multiple options for dealing with this. Hub transfer business is just icing on the cake, and many argue that London shouldn't even be pursuing this, especially at the prices quoted for making it possible. Even LHR's principal hub airline, British Airways, opposes R3 on the grounds of cost.
Gatwick will never be allowed to grow into the hub that LHR wants to be
See previous answer. Forget the hub paradigm. LGW's second runway would be deployed in satisfying soaring indigenous SE demand to all those unglamorous short-haul leisure destinations which many here want to conveniently ignore. The SE's runways will need to accommodate far more additional movements to Lanzarote and Alicante than to Chongqing and Suzhou. Short-haul leisure travel will continue to make up the largest proportion of SE growth going forward.
in the north I would say that once people realise that they will be able to go from their local airport to pretty much anywhere in the world with just a short flight and easy connection at LHR they change their mind from being totally disinterested in the third runway to being all in favour.
As a resident of said North, I truly struggle to take this comment seriously! Firstly, those located in the North have an impressive and growing list of non-stop long-haul flights to choose from already, straight from their own region. However, for destinations where a connection is required, the choice is quite simple. For example, a one hour flight to LHR followed by a fifteen hour connecting flight to final destination. Or a seven hour flight to a state-of-the-art MEB3 hub with a nine hour onward sector. It is much better to break one's journey close to the half-way point than right at the start. And as for the "easy connection at LHR" ... that would be the one with the aggressive second full security search complete with lengthy queues, followed by a nightmare terminal transfer to reach around 50% of the connecting flights. We'll pass on that, thanks!
I really do not understand why you are so against any of the taxpayers money being used to finance at least the transport works.
To be against government investment just because it is in the south is just sour grapes.
Deary me. Rather than repeat my full reasoning in depth yet again, may I invite you to re-read earlier detailed answers posted by myself on this topic. Because it is in the South? Sour grapes? It is easy - but very lazy - to dismiss opposing arguments with a sly dig like that. I remind you that the works which you refer to require between £5Bn and £20Bn in public funding (dependent on source). I run with Sir Peter Hendy's estimate of £10Bn which is less than half the difference between the two extremes (very generous of me) but this is still an
OUTRAGEOUS SUM. The problem is that such funds cannot be allocated twice. Public investment on that scale concentrated in the SE yet again results in an investment nuclear winter for the rest of the UK. We know ... we've had thirty years of it already. For comparison purposes, the North has
just been granted its first £1Bn (one billion) public infrastructure investment ever. And that goes on creating 'smart motorways' ... not the new roads we really need. The SE has enjoyed a veritable conveyor-belt of multi-billion pound projects with more bids on the way. World-class infrastructure for London; great, good luck with it. But it is now time to pause for some rebalancing of investment priorities across the rest of the country.
The hub and spoke arrangement will also mean less numbers of aircraft flying long haul out of the UK
So let me get this right. We want LHR R3 so that there will be
fewer long-haul flights out of the UK? Though presumably not at the expense of LHR. Is this what you would have us aspire to? Wonderful prospect for any UK business not located in the immediate hinterland of LHR! One suspects that your reasoning here is not altogether impartial!!!