HEATHROW
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How right you are, at PMQ's in the House of Commons today, GB in response to a question re the 3rd R/W, said "That the decision would be made on the floor of this house and only after that debate would the Transport Minister seek the compulsory purchase orders"
So there you have it, Parlimentary time has to be found for the debate which is less and likely to be found as the election draws nearer.
So there you have it, Parlimentary time has to be found for the debate which is less and likely to be found as the election draws nearer.
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With a very large fall in pax since the summer the case for a 3rd runway is not strong at the monment. LHR december traffic figures have only been kept up by airlines switching flights from gatwick, stansted, birmingham and machester. With BAA selling of other airports the game will change. Whoever buys gatwick will want the pax back. BAA will need to keep the fees down at LHR and will find it hard do anything more than keep with 2 runways. I cannot see any tax money left for the airport
I cannot see any tax money left for the airport
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I do not think the tax money will go on the 3rd runway which is why it will never get built. For BAA to fund it they would need to increase income. If the london airports are fighting for airlines that option will be very hard. While LHR can demand a higher fee than the other airports it will lose airlines if it goes too high. If Virgin are part of group buying Gatwick then things will be even harder.
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It works like this. The economy dives, traffic falls at Heathrow, slots open up, some traffic flees the other London airports into Heathrow. There is a degree of churn but given the choice of LHR / LGW / STN the major players all choose LHR. Airlines going LHR to LGW tend to REALLY need the money that the LHR slot will bring.
Newcomers at LHR include Arik Air and Oman Air, where Aer Lingus is building an operation at LGW to fill some of the slots left by the departure of the US airlines to LHR and the demise of XL. Churn continues, life goes on.
If BAA cannot build runway 3 then the maximisation of mixed mode is the full stop end of growth at Heathrow Airport. Hence all that remains is managed decline and maintenance and no business wants that, especially as they will no longer be running Gatwick. I have read some really biased arguments about LHR in the media where everyone has an opinion. I sometimes honestly wonder if the public live in some kind of fantasy world.
Do serious people think that an imaginary super rail link being bulldozed through the countryside is going to happen? As yet undefined and unbuilt with a myriad of local authorities suddenly looking at high speed trains blasting through built up areas? I used to live next to a railway and they are bloody noisy let me tell you. Are we really saying that the UK, with the workforce and bureaucracy that we have is going to concrete over an area of the North Sea, through an area of unusual wildlife, genuine unspoilt views replicating Hong Kong Chep Lap Kok on Western European labour costs and so in my lifetime, Our people believed house prices would go up forever and that you can remove demand for domestic air travel by building another high speed rail line, THROUGH SOMEONE ELSE'S BACKYARD. Just ignore the West Coast Mainline Debacle then.
We are fast becoming, IMHO, a deluded nation living a fantasy existence on credit we could never afford led by people who have little strategic vision.
If Crossrail had been built in the last recession, many of London's transport issues would have been fixed. That's exactly why a world class Heathrow with a third runway, room to function comfortably and access to the rail network proper is the best decision for the UK Gordon Brown could make.
One last thing, with mixed mode, the Cranford Agreement is nullified? You can't increase the capacity and divert if the wind changes to the 09s.....
Newcomers at LHR include Arik Air and Oman Air, where Aer Lingus is building an operation at LGW to fill some of the slots left by the departure of the US airlines to LHR and the demise of XL. Churn continues, life goes on.
If BAA cannot build runway 3 then the maximisation of mixed mode is the full stop end of growth at Heathrow Airport. Hence all that remains is managed decline and maintenance and no business wants that, especially as they will no longer be running Gatwick. I have read some really biased arguments about LHR in the media where everyone has an opinion. I sometimes honestly wonder if the public live in some kind of fantasy world.
Do serious people think that an imaginary super rail link being bulldozed through the countryside is going to happen? As yet undefined and unbuilt with a myriad of local authorities suddenly looking at high speed trains blasting through built up areas? I used to live next to a railway and they are bloody noisy let me tell you. Are we really saying that the UK, with the workforce and bureaucracy that we have is going to concrete over an area of the North Sea, through an area of unusual wildlife, genuine unspoilt views replicating Hong Kong Chep Lap Kok on Western European labour costs and so in my lifetime, Our people believed house prices would go up forever and that you can remove demand for domestic air travel by building another high speed rail line, THROUGH SOMEONE ELSE'S BACKYARD. Just ignore the West Coast Mainline Debacle then.
We are fast becoming, IMHO, a deluded nation living a fantasy existence on credit we could never afford led by people who have little strategic vision.
If Crossrail had been built in the last recession, many of London's transport issues would have been fixed. That's exactly why a world class Heathrow with a third runway, room to function comfortably and access to the rail network proper is the best decision for the UK Gordon Brown could make.
One last thing, with mixed mode, the Cranford Agreement is nullified? You can't increase the capacity and divert if the wind changes to the 09s.....
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It will not stagnate as it could get lots of A380s
They need extra separation thus negating the apparent benefit of extra seats.
If so, that would be good news.
An indication that in some quarters at least there is a recognition that if the UK population wishes to carry on enjoying a reasonable standard of living (by which I mean not just the luxuries of high employment, state pensions, healthcare and education, but at its most basic, the ability to house and feed oneself and family which for most of the world's population is not taken for granted), there has to be the means of creating that wealth.
What does UK plc have left? Very little manufacturing industry either high or low tech, production of coal,oil and gas are almost gone, and the remaining eggs of the 1980s Thatcherite revolution were placed in the basket of a smoke and mirrors finance industry whose profits have proved to be somewhat nebulous and which is being kept afloat only by a most unThatcherlike binge of state aid.
There's no magic - comfortable living standards, the welfare state, the trade deficits, the billions to keep the banks afloat - all of these have to be paid for, and that can only be done by finding ways to massively increase economic activity. The alternative is spending cuts or the slow death of squeezing higher taxes from a reducing income pot. In simple terms, our living standards will fall, those of successful nations will rise. To the delight of some, we can then begin to tear down our shopping malls, skyscraper office blocks,airports and hospitals because there will be no employment or revenue to support them, and we can all go back to pre-industrial subsistence farming. And by the way, 80 per cent of the population will have to go because that's all that the organic unmechanised farming of our disconnected island will support.
Hardly a great prospect. Amidst all this, we have been standing in the way of one of the few remaining industries in which Britain has been a world leader - air transport - by denying it infrastructure, increasing its costs and engaging in the farces of various T5-like planning sagas whilst France and numerous others have got on and demonstrated what can be done where there is determination to build and support a successful transport infrastructure including a wealth creating aviation sector. Above all, as Dubai and Singapore have shown (as two states which either trade or die), the existence of high quality airport and airline infrastructure does not bring success to just those sectors but is a prerequisite for expanding finance,tourism,trade and many other strategic sectors.
This is not to say that there should be a blank cheque to concrete and pollute, but the economic activity needed to keep 60m people in the style to which we are accustomed requires an acceptance that there are problems to be overcome and compromises to be made. I sympathise with the villagers of Sipson as I do with those of the original village of Heath Row and those disrupted by every straight road built since the Romans, but the job of government is to make the hard choices and and to minimise disruption, not to opt out of its responsibilities to the nation as a whole. The lack of a coherent policy over the years has produced a situation which pleases no-one and has left Britain with a creaking transport system over-reliant on polluting road vehicles for freight & passengers, and a capital city which distributes its six runways over 5 separate airports, none of which is connected to a high speed national or international rail network. Thus we have the replication of a mass of infrastructure and feeder routes which produce an aggregate environmental effect and degree of economic inefficiency far greater than would just one or two large integrated hubs, not to mention the extra pollution caused by the the ATC air and ground holding delays which result from this bodge of unnecessary quintuplication. The procrastination of the last two decades has caused planning blight not just around existing airports but over a vast area of SE England from from Foulness to Cublington.
In conclusion, growth isn't an "either..or" issue. By all means let's recognise the dangers of environmental damage but work to ensure that we can have growth whose positives benefit the vast majority and whose negative effects can and will be minimised with human ingenuity through technology and sensible regulation. The tremendous recent advances in noise and emissions reduction, together with fuel efficiency, show that within a framework of government regulation and support of technological innovation, and in response to economic factors such as fuel price and competition, the air transport industry can manage its growth responsibly.
An indication that in some quarters at least there is a recognition that if the UK population wishes to carry on enjoying a reasonable standard of living (by which I mean not just the luxuries of high employment, state pensions, healthcare and education, but at its most basic, the ability to house and feed oneself and family which for most of the world's population is not taken for granted), there has to be the means of creating that wealth.
What does UK plc have left? Very little manufacturing industry either high or low tech, production of coal,oil and gas are almost gone, and the remaining eggs of the 1980s Thatcherite revolution were placed in the basket of a smoke and mirrors finance industry whose profits have proved to be somewhat nebulous and which is being kept afloat only by a most unThatcherlike binge of state aid.
There's no magic - comfortable living standards, the welfare state, the trade deficits, the billions to keep the banks afloat - all of these have to be paid for, and that can only be done by finding ways to massively increase economic activity. The alternative is spending cuts or the slow death of squeezing higher taxes from a reducing income pot. In simple terms, our living standards will fall, those of successful nations will rise. To the delight of some, we can then begin to tear down our shopping malls, skyscraper office blocks,airports and hospitals because there will be no employment or revenue to support them, and we can all go back to pre-industrial subsistence farming. And by the way, 80 per cent of the population will have to go because that's all that the organic unmechanised farming of our disconnected island will support.
Hardly a great prospect. Amidst all this, we have been standing in the way of one of the few remaining industries in which Britain has been a world leader - air transport - by denying it infrastructure, increasing its costs and engaging in the farces of various T5-like planning sagas whilst France and numerous others have got on and demonstrated what can be done where there is determination to build and support a successful transport infrastructure including a wealth creating aviation sector. Above all, as Dubai and Singapore have shown (as two states which either trade or die), the existence of high quality airport and airline infrastructure does not bring success to just those sectors but is a prerequisite for expanding finance,tourism,trade and many other strategic sectors.
This is not to say that there should be a blank cheque to concrete and pollute, but the economic activity needed to keep 60m people in the style to which we are accustomed requires an acceptance that there are problems to be overcome and compromises to be made. I sympathise with the villagers of Sipson as I do with those of the original village of Heath Row and those disrupted by every straight road built since the Romans, but the job of government is to make the hard choices and and to minimise disruption, not to opt out of its responsibilities to the nation as a whole. The lack of a coherent policy over the years has produced a situation which pleases no-one and has left Britain with a creaking transport system over-reliant on polluting road vehicles for freight & passengers, and a capital city which distributes its six runways over 5 separate airports, none of which is connected to a high speed national or international rail network. Thus we have the replication of a mass of infrastructure and feeder routes which produce an aggregate environmental effect and degree of economic inefficiency far greater than would just one or two large integrated hubs, not to mention the extra pollution caused by the the ATC air and ground holding delays which result from this bodge of unnecessary quintuplication. The procrastination of the last two decades has caused planning blight not just around existing airports but over a vast area of SE England from from Foulness to Cublington.
In conclusion, growth isn't an "either..or" issue. By all means let's recognise the dangers of environmental damage but work to ensure that we can have growth whose positives benefit the vast majority and whose negative effects can and will be minimised with human ingenuity through technology and sensible regulation. The tremendous recent advances in noise and emissions reduction, together with fuel efficiency, show that within a framework of government regulation and support of technological innovation, and in response to economic factors such as fuel price and competition, the air transport industry can manage its growth responsibly.
Last edited by Max Tow; 15th Jan 2009 at 03:47.
Paxing All Over The World
I agree that the 3rd should have been built ten years ago - but I still say it won't have been built in another ten years. Yes, this country is that stupid.
Will a 3rd runway get built by 2011 ? Doubtful.
If you lived in Sipson and were told that you had to leave the home in which you'd lived for the last 20 years and uproot your family away from your friends for the sake of making others richer, wouldn't you feel aggrieved by it ? Or those who get increased noise pollution ?
Some may want a 3rd runway built immediately, but we would not be a civilised society if we did not give those who see an injustice the right to be heard and challenge any decision. If that means a legal challenge to the highest level, so be it.
If you lived in Sipson and were told that you had to leave the home in which you'd lived for the last 20 years and uproot your family away from your friends for the sake of making others richer, wouldn't you feel aggrieved by it ? Or those who get increased noise pollution ?
Some may want a 3rd runway built immediately, but we would not be a civilised society if we did not give those who see an injustice the right to be heard and challenge any decision. If that means a legal challenge to the highest level, so be it.
Does anyone recall the slightest discussion or opportunity for rebuttal about the CO2 level regulations round Heathrow that the EC immediately used as a brake on the airport mounting any commercial challenge to Amsterdam, CDG, etc ?
A compulsory purchase order on one's own home is a major event. Does wanting to protest eviction from your home really make you into an immediate aviation hater ?
Give people the right to protest, and if the decision goes against them, the rest of the society will say 'Oh well, they had a chance to say their stuff'. Deny people that right and the rest of society vents its anger against those who compel
Kyoto affects everyone in the UK, so nobody is particularly disadvantaged compared to others. Eviction from one's home has a major effect on a few about whom most do not particularly care. Grant them at least the right to protest even if you think their objections are of no value.
Where were the protests against the Kyoto Protocol when Parliament passed the bill ? Were you on the news waving a banner against it ?
I support a 3rd runway at LHR - but I support far more strongly the right to be heard
Give people the right to protest, and if the decision goes against them, the rest of the society will say 'Oh well, they had a chance to say their stuff'. Deny people that right and the rest of society vents its anger against those who compel
Kyoto affects everyone in the UK, so nobody is particularly disadvantaged compared to others. Eviction from one's home has a major effect on a few about whom most do not particularly care. Grant them at least the right to protest even if you think their objections are of no value.
Where were the protests against the Kyoto Protocol when Parliament passed the bill ? Were you on the news waving a banner against it ?
I support a 3rd runway at LHR - but I support far more strongly the right to be heard
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 15th Jan 2009 at 09:37.
For the remainder, the "issues" that seem to galvanise the local media are pretty much always nothing more than a non-contractural means of getting more compensation. It is amazing how after offering that extra £20k they were asking for, the opposition melts away. So offer it in the first place. A competent organisation* would set up a little liaison team who did all the arranging of new/nicer home purchase, sorted the compensation adequately, did all the admin hassle, and generally avoided any issues at all.
* : Unfortunately I can't bring myself to include "competent organisation" and BAA in the same sentence. They don't even know how to run an airport nicely so it's most unlikely they could get this one right.
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Often when properties are compulsarily purchased the owner gets a set percentage over current market value anyway (say 105% or 110%) plus a lump sum towards relocation costs. It would probably be cheaper in this instance for BAA to pay for a 'new' Sipson to be built north of the M4 so the community could stay together if it so wished. Building them bespoke new homes would probably be more cost effective than paying the market value! However no doubt Greenpeace and FoE would be there complaining about the loss of open space again...
I do find it bizzare though that, at a time when we berate politicians for ducking difficult decisions, when such a decision is taken we're surprised as a country by the furore that follows. IMHO the Governemnt should have taken the view that if they are to take a controversial decision they should make it a decent one. For once in my life I might actually be finding myself in agreement with Boris...(time for a lie down in a darkened room...)
I do find it bizzare though that, at a time when we berate politicians for ducking difficult decisions, when such a decision is taken we're surprised as a country by the furore that follows. IMHO the Governemnt should have taken the view that if they are to take a controversial decision they should make it a decent one. For once in my life I might actually be finding myself in agreement with Boris...(time for a lie down in a darkened room...)
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T5 - What a disgrace
Just used T5 for the first time last week. What a disgrace!!!
For those who haven't been there, it is only half finished. Our plane parked at a building that had its steel frame up, but that was it. We were then bussed from this building site to the terminal building. The luggage came an hour later, presumably by donkey.
Its as if BAA wanted to build a shopping mall, and forgot the aircraft.
If Wembley and T5 are anything to go by, I hate to think what London will do with the olympics.
Ryanair, Easyjet and the other profitable airlines have woken up to there being a country outside the M25. When will the government also wake up and move expansion to Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle?
For those who haven't been there, it is only half finished. Our plane parked at a building that had its steel frame up, but that was it. We were then bussed from this building site to the terminal building. The luggage came an hour later, presumably by donkey.
Its as if BAA wanted to build a shopping mall, and forgot the aircraft.
If Wembley and T5 are anything to go by, I hate to think what London will do with the olympics.
Ryanair, Easyjet and the other profitable airlines have woken up to there being a country outside the M25. When will the government also wake up and move expansion to Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle?
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Techman5,
I don't know how you can bring Wembley into this! Having visited some of the greatest stadiums in the world including the homes of Manchester United, AC Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich etc. Wembley tops this list. I think that when the FA decided to build a new Wembley, they were making a huge mistake as how could you replace the towers which welcomed you to the home of football? It may have been late and over priced but now we have a national stadium to be proud of and those precious words of "We're going to Wembley" can finally be heard form the stands once again.
T5 has been a problem child for BAA, BA and the nation's reputation but look that is happening in the long run at LHR. When R3 is open and T6 is available and T5 settles in with all satellites are open it SHOULD work very well.
London is currently the capital of the financial and transport sectors for the world and we need to keep this going. By trying to improve on LHR and help it grow to stay ahead of competition we aim to keep London's titles.
We should be proud of our country and look further into the future. If you are worrying about the Olympics, look at Manchester. It now has the world's most equipped cycling arena and we can clearly see this by last summers successes. We should look at what we have done and what we are going to do and not just look at what we have failed in.
Sorry to moan but it does annoy me when people complain about the country I love and I wouldn't swap for any other.
I don't know how you can bring Wembley into this! Having visited some of the greatest stadiums in the world including the homes of Manchester United, AC Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich etc. Wembley tops this list. I think that when the FA decided to build a new Wembley, they were making a huge mistake as how could you replace the towers which welcomed you to the home of football? It may have been late and over priced but now we have a national stadium to be proud of and those precious words of "We're going to Wembley" can finally be heard form the stands once again.
T5 has been a problem child for BAA, BA and the nation's reputation but look that is happening in the long run at LHR. When R3 is open and T6 is available and T5 settles in with all satellites are open it SHOULD work very well.
London is currently the capital of the financial and transport sectors for the world and we need to keep this going. By trying to improve on LHR and help it grow to stay ahead of competition we aim to keep London's titles.
We should be proud of our country and look further into the future. If you are worrying about the Olympics, look at Manchester. It now has the world's most equipped cycling arena and we can clearly see this by last summers successes. We should look at what we have done and what we are going to do and not just look at what we have failed in.
Sorry to moan but it does annoy me when people complain about the country I love and I wouldn't swap for any other.