I have absolutely zero issue with expansion of Heathrow. I have indicated as much on countless occasions, I do however have a problem with the "price point" of government support propping up such a venture, especially when the taxiway is littered with real obstacles which nobody who supports this proposition is actually able to counter!
So you have no objection to the expansion of LHR except the objections you then list?
A LHR mega-airport would be wonderful to have if it could be provided affordably. The problem is it can't be.
It'll be expensive but we disagree on how much, I strongly believe it needs doing, you believe we should spend money in your local area of Manchester instead. One is a national infrastructure piece connecting the UK to the world, the other is <insert local project here>> However worthy option 2 is, option 1 still needs doing, and right now people are inflating and conflating handy statistics to prevent this happening.
Both have ambition. But their geographical locations differ. In the context of travel planning that matters quite alot.
So we agree Heathrow is not in Germany, but Frankfurt being in Germany makes something different somehow. This is not the clearest point you have ever made.....
In fact, the free market will decide even if LHR is available as a choice.
The free market would have built a third runway years ago if it were not for the stupidity of politicians and localist NIMBY-ism trumping the national interest.
Spending GBP18.5Bn directly plus GBP12-18Bn in publicly-funded support works to increase LHR throughput by just 50% is the laughable notion in this debate.
Except the figures you quote are scaremongering worst case scenario conflated numbers.
Your "solution" of spending a combined sum of upto 36 Billion Pounds to increase LHR capability by just 50% is the true folly here.
What % of that huge figure would be spent anyway Shed? Get real, I work as an analyst and spend days with people and their BS made up numbers. This is classic worst case scenario.
You think that replacing obsolete time-expired terminal buildings with a new stat-of-the-art replacement is dumb? I respectfully disagree. Future measures to accommodate growth based upon a sound business case will of course be welcome as well.
Perhaps I am being thick, but MAN's rebuild has no growth budget for whatsoever? It'll be capacity neutral on completion even though it will be completed years from now when growth will have outstripped existing caapcity? That's how LHR and MAN got into such a mess in the first place.
Conflated eh ... see how I worked your favourite word in again, Skip! ;-)
Well if you make an effort to stop doing it, I can stop saying it
