Ealing Council propose closure of RAF Northolt
 

Just what the area needs, more ruddy houses.....:ugh:

Ealing Council is run by attention seeking idiots with absolutely no understanding of anything - as a resident of the borough I have first hand experience of their continual ineptitude on just about every subject.

The impact on the road and infrastructure when just less than a 1000 homes were built on the old Taylor Woodrow complex some 2 miles up the road from RAF Northolt has been dramatic......the number they are proposing would create havoc in that area.....

Muppets.

But your missing the point GeeRam, it's not about quality of life, it's all about ramming in as many people as possible.

Cos more people = more GDP growth = more people = more houses, rinse and repeat :)

More houses = more council tax = more money for Ealing council and they will blur over the cost of additional services required.

An important site in the great scheme, HM Gov. would surely ensure they keep it in reserve for response use to anything big going off in London?

Always thought it was in LB of Hillingdon, but maybe that was just RAF Uxbridge

That's a proper armchair general's observation. It doesn't take much imagination to work out that there are things other than VIP transport that a military airfield near the capital city might be used for... and not just QRA during the Olympic games.

That's what many people thought about Halton after it's use for Op OLYMPIC and potential for other requirements in London. It has/had the capability to generate accommodation for thousands (if you sent the recruits home), an unrivalled ability to train people for ceremonial (or other duties) and you could reach London in under an hour (at suitably unsociable hours).

Even that, together with the apprentice history and tradition at Halton, wasn't enough to save it from the housing plan.

Is Northolt all that different?

Much easier to get 'stuff' into Northolt quickly than it is into Halton. Also, as sites around London are binned, the stronger the case for retaining Northolt grows: with fewer and fewer potential operational sites available, the ones you keep become ever more valuable.

But where would that leave Dr Rupa Huq. She and labour need those houses filled with grateful multicultural benefit recipients whose votes can be cast by the "block" to ensure the right person gets in. Tower Hamlets being an example.

You are spot on Javelin Boy and Easy Street

HM Gov. would surely ensure they keep it in reserve for response use to anything big going off in London?

I can't begin to think of how, on at least a hundred times without Northolt's ILS I'd have ever got into the centre of London from a beautiful city near the Welsh border and more importantly, with the passengers, I was carrying and a very very low overshoot onto the heli lanes. The Bovingdon radial 233? (Can't remember) Used to scare the crap out of me in poor weather!

If they can do it to kemp ton park horse track I know it's owned by the jockey club what's them not doing it to Northolt

The Southeast needs more houses

No-one wants to build on the Green Belt

How many flights use Northolt? And how many of them are business jets these days?

Bit of a slam-dunk TBH

The idea it will be saved so that the RAF can fly in thousands of non-existant troops in case of "civil unrest" is fantasy.................

The only thing that will save it is that the case will be made to the politicians that they'll have to use City or LHR

Or Farnborough, or Biggin, or ................. .

or even LHR at the end of the day..................

The Great British Public do not see airports as necessary or even desireable TBH - especially if they live near one................

HH oh what a wonderful fluffy world you live in.

What if JSFAW needs to maintain readiness and mount ops into London quickly? Northolt offers options that I don't think are available elsewhere.

AI R,

If I remember correctly Northolt had two Tornado's deployed there as 9/11 was happening on QRA.

If Northolt was closed down, that would make the owners of Kiddligton (Oxford) and Biggin Hill very very happy as they have tried in the past to close Northolt to civilian traffic. Are there wheels within wheels happening here?

Interesting one and how hard would it be to have a number of aircraft on QRA based at the New Heathrow with immediate access to runway if required ?

Time for Green Belt to be changed as it a blight and forces more and more people into less and less space while keeping house prices too high.

//RANT ON

Having commuted into Central London on and off for 40 years, I can tell you that the Green Belt MUST to be expanded, not concreted over. When you cannot see from one side of Whitehall to other because of the smog, and people are collapsing in the street due to lack of oxygen, and the stench which rises from the ground in a morning, makes you want to vomit, and the salad vegetables grown under the approach to 09L at Heathrow arrive in local supermarkets tasting of paraffin or avgas, and your car is covered in spots of fuel, and where cattle and sheep graze on the grass covered in said fuel spots.

Where the runoff from concreted estates, airports, parking areas ends up in the River from which 20 million people drink every day. Not to mention the 5 sets of filtering kidneys anecdote.

We NEED less people and much, much, more green belt before we are all sickened or poisoned to the point of death.

//RANT OFF

There you go

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