So six years after the idea was dropped, the government has now approved a third runway being built at Heathrow airport.
I'm not 100% for or against but at the moment I'm leaning on the 'against' side. Not pleased about how much taxpayer money it'll cost, the additional noise and air pollution it'll cause, plus the locals must be devastated (but fortunately I'm not in that position). At least the economy will likely be boosted from it.
I'm all for this if Boris Johnson keeps his word on laying down in front of the bulldozzers.
However, on a more serious note, I'm kinda split on this issue. On the one hand, the air pollution and noise is bad, and there's the locals of Harmondsworth, Sipson and Longford, but on the other hand, a third runway for Heathrow isn't exactly unnecessary.
This is what happens in a tiny tiny country: no space.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned in protest of this, Boris to follow him now please
As for the idea itself I think I'm leaning more towards against because of the reasons already stated in here - environmental damage, unpleasantness for locals, noise etc.
Heathrow is a bloody shambles, it needs two new runways, not one. This is about three decades overdue. The government doesn't care about emissions or it wouldn't have cut renewable subsidies and support and then approved a hacking great useless nuclear toxic waste dump on the south coast.
In reality what this is is a Brexit smokescreen. It's a controversial decision that will generate millions of column inches so the Government can hide for another few months that it still doesn't have a Brexit plan and it's still completely rudderless and pointless.
Another way to look at it is that this will start building in 2020 and be a major infrastructure project, thus employer, at right about the time when Brexit will really start to f*** over the economy. But that's just me being a cynic.
The problem with large infrastructure at Westminster is that it's too late, too expensive, shoddily run, late and over budget. We need to start building things like HS2 now, not in 2151 or whenever they're going to finally get on with it.
Heathrow is a shithole as it is (the area, not the airport). So I can't see much opposition from the town. The M25 is ridiculous enough as it is, lord knows what it will be like now. I guess the idea is that economically, the expansion of Heathrow is much better. But realistically, they really should have gone for Gatwick. Not quite as glamorous or as close to London, but definitely the better option.
I admire Zac for keeping his promise to his constituents to resign if it was given the go-ahead.
The problem is, Heathrow is a very busy airport who could benefit from a third runway.
However, I would like to suggest an alternative:
Vastly reduce (or cancel altogether) domestic and short distance flights. Far too many flights departing from and going to Heathrow are ridiculously short. You don't need to take a plane to go from London to Manchester. You can take a train. Or drive.
My plan would be to remove all flights to destinations which can be driven to from London in less than 10 hours (not counting ferry crossings). This means no more flying to places like Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, and so on, to relieve congestion and to stop wasting money and fuel on short flights.
Do you need to fly to go from London to New York? Of course you do, how else are you going to get from London to New York in a relatively short amount of time?
Do you need to fly to go from London to Lisbon? Well, you could drive, but it is 20 hour trip (not counting breaks), so it's understandable youj would prefer to take a plane.
Do you need to fly to go from London to Paris? No you don't. It takes around 5 hours to go from London to Paris,and the Eurostar does that journey in 2 hours and 16 min. Drive to Paris like a normal person. Or if you don't feel like driving, take the Eurostar. It's better for the environnement, it's cheaper, and you actually spend more time on the London-Paris journey if you take a plane since you need to get to the aeroport 2 hours before. It is not worth either the hassle or the money.
the money proposed to knock off 15 mins on the train journey from northern towns to London (a fortune) could have been spent on high-speed links between heathrow and gatwick and gatwick and London.
I look forward to news headlines on traffic pileups under the new runway, or planes failing on take-off hurtling into housing..
I am cynical...
Taylor Jago's solution is a bit simplistic, but the gist of his argument is perfectly valid.
Successive governments have simply accepted the case for increasing capacity without asking why. Instead of arguing that the train service from London to Edinburgh is too slow and expensive, we should ask "Why do you need to go to Edinburgh for a meeting at all?". Some years ago I was working in Reading. I had regular meetings with people in Liverpool. None if us left our office for the meetings; they were conducted by conference call. At no time did I feel that anything was lost by us not being in the same room.
The same applies to meetings in New York or anywhere else across the Atlantic. Of course there will be times when face-to-face contact is required, but there is plenty of scope for increasing the use of technology.
That leaves leisure travel. I certainly wouldn't ban short flights, but more people should be using trains. For anyone who wants to go from central London to central Paris, the train is quicker and the views are better. You also know where your luggage is all the time. Next year a direct service to Amsterdam will start and there are already services to the south of France.
For longer flights, we should make better use of regional airports. It may mean a little less choice of dates and times, but they are a lot more convenient.
The next thing is to persuade the French to make it easier to travel by train from the Channel ports without having to go into Paris first. Of course, they may decide it's not worth listening to us any more.
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