Originally Posted by
Trash 'n' Navs
Compulsory purchase - Heathrow is offering 25% above market rate and has a large allocation set aside in its costings. Should a commercial agreement not be achieved then yes, the state can compulsorily acquire it but would pass the cost straight on to the developer. This is what page 328 says.
AC forecasts - if the AC's methodology is flawed and they didn't predict LGW's growth, then the same must be true of LHR's growth. In which case, it's worse than first thought. The government is artificially influencing the market by preventing LHR from expanding and driving growth to LGW as there's no alternative. That sounds like State Aid in favour of GIP.
Thats a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of commercial reality, let alone state aid.
If LHR are unable to expand (for example because they cannot afford to do so without significant support from public funds) then that is a commercial issue for LHR to address.
State aid is not a zero sum game. If LHR is allowed to grow, then that does not necessarily mean that it receives state aid. Likewise if LGW is allowed to grow. The issue is whether tens of billions of pounds of public money are being pumped into a private enterprise to give it an artificial competetive advantage over (in particular) AMS, FRA, CDG.