Well I thought that would ruffle the feathers of the Manchester airport enthusiasts.
This is not a school playground, Prophead. Lines like this reflect on you, not those who engage in respectful debate with you on the core issues.
2 train journeys often in the early hours of the morning, maybe on a sunday when trains are not running frequently.
Good news for you on Sunday trains. The newly-awarded Northern and Transpennine franchises come with substantial upgrades to Sunday services.
Shuttle flights from Humberside, Durham, LBA , Doncaster etc. down to LHR will open up more routes for less hassle.
I welcome a broad range of travel choices for the public, subject to them being made available at a cost which makes sense. Your claim that travel via LHR represents "less hassle" is sadly very far removed from the truth unless the user-experience there is radically improved.
If you think Manchester was the best option then how do you explain the numbers travelling from these airports to Amsterdam for better long haul options
I do not make any broad claim of this sort. 'The best option' varies from one individual traveller to the next. Indeed, it actually varies from one journey to the next. AMS is one good choice amongst many and I have never argued to the contrary.
The hub is not the icing on the cake it was the reason LHR wanted a new runway in the first place.
The hub is indeed the icing on the cake. Dealing with air travel growth indigenous to the SE market should be the primary focus of this decision. LGW is well-suited to fulfilment of this need.
This idea that you can just build a new runway at any airport in the south east and fix the problem shows a lack of understanding
On the contrary, a new runway at LGW demonstrates understanding that the bulk of additional growth affecting the SE airports system will derive from short-haul leisure travel, not long thin hub-dependent routes.
You really don't get what people have been trying to tell you for pages and pages now.
I
get your argument perfectly well. I just profoundly disagree with it.
The road system around that area needs upgrading and will be upgraded anyway so you will be paying for that whether LHR expansion goes ahead or not.
So will a new M25 road-tunnel be required beneath a runway which isn't there? Some upgrades may be required regardless but not the whole package associated with major expansion of LHR. Remember, the sums quoted for this support work are not trifling amounts. They alone constitute between 5x and 20x the cost of the largest single public infrastructure project
ever sanctioned in the North. We are not talking a rounding error here. Besides, essential infrastructure upgrades outside the SE have been made to await their turn for years. This London work should take its due place in the queue, not expect to be catapulted to the front as some divine right. There really is an air of entitlement surrounding this whole issue of SE infrastructure upgrades.
A hub at LHR would be a national asset bring growth and income to the whole country and should not be seen as a south east only project.
Ah, back to the old 'trickledown' argument. As Sir Richard Leese so aptly put it: "In my experience, trickledown really does mean a trickle." Just think through - honestly - how much benefit communities like Workington, Burnley, Barnsley, Dudley, Grimsby and Middlesbrough will truly benefit from throwing ten billion pounds of public money at LHR support works. Then consider how they could be transformed beyond recognition with a small fraction of that invested directly on infrastructure in their own immediate area. We need to be honest here. An expanded LHR will
overwhelmingly benefit the SE alone and will further broaden the North-South divide. Besides, remember your own earlier assertion that one of the 'benefits' of an expanded LHR will be fewer long-haul flights from other UK airports. The regions would really benefit from that, wouldn't they?
please tell me how you know what the connection will be like at a terminal that has not even been designed yet never mind the fact that it wont be operational until maybe 2030?
I can tell you that the transfers from T5 to new T2 and relatively-new T4 are already dire. I am aware of no plans to demolish these? As for additional new-build terminals, the jury is out.
why don't you come clean and tell us all the real reason for being against the hub idea.
I have done so repeatedly, but will happily remind you once more. The sum of between five and twenty billion pounds of public money (probably around ten billion in the final reckoning) will reinforce the nuclear winter in public infrastructure investment suffered by the rest of the UK for years to come. Public funding is tight, and it only gets allocated once. Financing LHR support works to this extent will be another disaster for proposed infrastructure investment beyond the SE region.
You see it as a threat to any new direct routes from Manchester which happens to be your local airport.
I do wish Manchester Airport a successful future. But if you see this as my motive, can you explain to us all why I have been arguing for a new runway at LGW and maximisation of capacity at STN and LTN? Surely, airports in the regions would benefit to a greater extent if airport capacity in the SE were to be strangled? You can't just argue that all opponents of this very controversial LHR R3 proposal are motivated by planespotting opportunities at [insert name of regional airport]. That is childish stuff. Stick to arguing the issues.