Heathrow cleared for take-off? Third (and even FOURTH) runway plans
 

Read all about it here.

Warning: Daily Mail bias

Just as long as someone makes a bloody decision and gets on with it. :)

Zac Goldsmith is, of course, opposed ... as the poor people in his constituency will possibly suffer a little more noise than they do currently, and he would like to be re-elected on a platform of "No More Planes".

Boris johnson has hung his hat on the Estuary Project, and has been so vociferous in his support of the fantasy he can't change position now. please don't cry too loudly when you lose.

But undoubtedly, whichever option is selected, the Court battles and discovery of rare newts/insects/weeds will prolong matters beyond my lifetime.

"Cleared" sounds like it's putting it far too high at this stage. All that this report seems to anticipate is that the Airports Commission will recommend it. That's hardly a surprise in the light of all that's been said in the last few months. The recommendation will simply start the political process that will probably bring out the most fabulous display of NIMBYism that any of us will be lucky to see in our lifetimes.

I get so tired of this.

Hasn't LHR R3 been given a green light many, many times over the last 5 or so years? But we as far away as ever from any actual construction work starting. The British way of handling and authorising large scale public works is farcical. Truly farcical :td:

I'll believe it when I see the first strip of Tarmac been laid.

I will believe it when the first plane takes off and lands.

I reckon HS2 will give it a run for its money re NIMBYism. Lets face it we are now a country that does not want to do anything anymore, and are content for the rest of the world to overtake us.

I am with the " I will believe it when I see it " brigade

There's no question that London needs a four runway hub. Heathrow is not the right position for it.

http://static.progressivemediagroup....ary/thames.jpg

I'd have to agree with you.

The thing about HS2 is that its becoming more of an either/or with the 3rd runway. I believe the HS2 NIMBYs are just as nasty if not nastier than the Runway 3 NIMBYs as the political class realises one or other of them will have to happen to please the business lobby the pressure is on for them to decide which set of NIMBYs is worse.
I would like both but think a third runway is a better solution. A third and fourth is even better.
Apparently Davies was going to have just a third and fourth runway in his interim report on Tuesday and discuss which is the best place to locate the next runway but George Osbourne and the politicians came in and tried to hijack the report to include other options.

A third runway is the only option. They all know it. Ed Balls is a huge supporter of a third runway and is trying to bully Ed Miliband who is a massive opponent of it to add it the 2015 Labour manifesto. Ed Balls apparently had Angela Eagle sacked as shadow transport secretary because she was against a third runway. Good for him.

David Cameron, George Osborne and most Tories know a third runway is the only option and are planning to support it after 2015. They are just too scared atm to admit it.

Politicians suck.

In the long term you are correct.

However a third runway is needed as a sticking plaster solution whilst a six runway hub in the North Sea is constructed.

This LHR nonsense has become a famous British pastime worldwide. We have become a laughing stock. Either way a decision and development will still leave the UK woefully behind the curve.
We simply lack the balls and/or capital to move forward. Put frankly, reinvesting in the armed forces would see better a better future for this expenditure. Until a U-turn on APD comes into play any expansion is fruitless apart from Cargo movements.

One of the options for HS2 is a link with Heathrow. IMO these decisions are not independent of each other as Heathrow increases the business case for HS2.

Whether it's Heathrow, Boris Island, Stansted, LGW- it doesn't matter that much too me. The only thing that matters and that we must surely all agree on is (1) extra capacity is needed (lots); (2) It is needed now and (3) we have been messing around for far too long whilst eveyone else got their act together long ago. Some people will obviously be put out by whichever expansion takes place, but the good of the Country must take precedence. Now for heaven's sake can we please get on with it.

We also need to agree on the fact that HUB capacity is needed.

The UK needs a HUB.

LGW is campaigning on just developing LHR, LGW and STN into 2 runway point to point airports.

Britain needs a HUB. Be it a 3-4 runway LHR, 4 runway STN or a 6 runway north sea airport.

It always happens with these large projects, same thing with the Eurotunnel and the HS2. The decision making processes are so slow that our current generation will barely benefit from the technological advantages, by the time these things have been realised we're 20 to 30 years onward and the demand for transportation would have outgrown the capacity yet again.
The need for transportation is one of an imminent kind, you risk barricading economic growth without it. I wish there would be less bickering and we'd see bulldozers and tarmac being put down within the next 5 years. Unlikely though.

Btw I strongly disapprove of a "Boris island" scenario, in the first place because of the damage done to the Thames Estuary and its flora and fauna, in the second place because the main reason Heathrow is such a popular airport is the fact that it is not merely serving London but a large part of the South & Midlands. People residing in places like Swindon, Bournemouth, Oxford and such would significantly increase journey times + footprint having to commute all the way across London to the east.

Lest we just kick UK politicians/financiers, when they built the IAD Approach Road back in the 60s, the central median was left wide enough to accept a Metro connection. On that 14 mile stretch, it's almost half-way there (and that's only happened in the last couple of years) :D

Gestation Period of Elephants isn't in it when looking at major infrastructure projects. I will almost certainly be dead before I see the Metro at IAD or a 3rd runway at LHR. I'm just grateful I saw the M25 completed :D

I'll just drag out the usual reasons against an estuary/North Sea airport:

• More prone to fog
• Increased risk of bird strikes
• Too close to continental airspace
• The wrong side of London for most O&D passengers

And my new one, which was obvious really, susceptibility to tidal surges/rising sea levels

I hear you T8191 and totally agree. We are the laughing stock of the aviation world with all this faffing about.
LHR has gone from #1 to #5 airport in the world over the last few years.

On the wrong side of London?
Miles from the M4 corridor?
Force closing Heathrow and intentionaly losing 50-70,000 jobs?
Having spent billions on T5A / B / C, T2A / B and Crossrail?

Follow the money, not the blonde after dinner speaker cum serial shagger or the dashing billionaire's son. Boris Island is known as "Fantasy Island" with good reason.
It needs a commercially viable hub in the right place. Closing LHR cannot mean that exisiting market will use Fantasy Island as all of a sudden, other airports are much closer to millions of jobs in West London. Get it wrong and you have what Montreal did at Mirabel or BAA did at Stansted, a huge new expensive facility no one wants to be forced to pay money to use.

Neither is the North Sea apparently. As I've posted before, this government document lists the literally dozens of similar schemes over the years and they've *all* failed for the same reasons. Thus it's no surprise to see Boris Island being discarded as a serious contender - it was pretty much bound to be that way.

http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN04920.pdf

UK's aviation hub has, for good or ill, evolved over the last 60+ years at LHR. That's where it is, the same as London is where it is, and Southampton Docks are where they are. Massive residential, logistical and other factors have evolved around it.

The idea of moving UK's primary aviation hub is about as sensible as saying "Let's move London to somewhere nicer, like Newquay". :)

You never know, with 2 extra runways there might be enough capacity for LHR-NQY flights (again)

I really can't understand all these people who keep campaigning for extra runways at Heathrow. It's absolutely the right thing for the country but the politicians simply will never do it due to the vocal opposition.

An inquiry that selects only options involving expansion at LHR is wasting everyone's time and money as the results will simply never, ever be implemented.

About the only way something like that would be some kind of local referendum where the choice is between expansion and complete closure with no option in between. I don't see that anything short of that will generate enough support to convince the politicians to overcome the opposition.

Without something like that, realistically the only choice is between somewhere other than Heathrow and nothing at all. I fear we're in for another dose of the latter.

Let's say everything went perfectly and they approved it all. What is the soonest possible date the third runway could be done? From my understanding, even if it were finished today, it would be almost instantly to capacity again. So obviously, simply expanding Heathrow is out. The politicians need to decide whether to take the, 6? airports we currently have, and expand all of them or if they are going to take one of the existing airports and massively expand it or if they will build a new airport entirely.

Has BHX got any potential to be a hub? It's centrally located, the HS2 could link it well with the Capital and it's conveniently central for non-Londoners. If you look on the southern side of the M42 there is a LOT of space and it's not anywhere near as residential as LHR.

This is London's airport, and the regional links cannot be the main focus here. London has 20% of the country's GDP, add in the South East and it almost half of the country's GDP.

London itself has an economy larger than that of Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland, according to this useful dossier of facts:

http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/lon...htm?category=7

It needs its own hub.

There is some confusion about the "Boris Island" plan, which was an early concept island-based airport in the Thames Estuary (never North Sea) with rail links to the mainland. This concept was ditched by the Mayor, in favour of the Foster & Partners Thames Hub (erroneously now also called by some "Boris Island"). Here's a map of the original, Boris Island:

http://i42.tinypic.com/ams6xz.jpg

Here's a map showing the Foster & Partners Thames Hub proposal, which is the one backed by Boris Johnson, and very much built on land, albeit just to add to the confusion land named the "Isle of Grain" (it's no longer and island, but a gravel peninsula nowadays)..:

http://www.estatesgazette.com/blogs/...272-145743.jpg


So, Thames Hub Airport is the right terminology for those in the know..

I'm not surprised Heathrow has come out in front, an existing business has the motivation and skillset to lobby for the outcome they want. Not to mention the budget.

I do hope Davies does at least consider what we need 50, 100, 150 years from now. Heathrow might be the right "sticking plaster" solution, but that's not the sort of decision this country was built on, and not choosing a site with hub potential, and room for more in the future, would be a grave error.

Thankfully, not one I'll have to worry about, but it is one which the next generation will be hampered by.

That probably rules out anything built in an estuary/on the east coast due to the combination of rising sea levels and potential effect of storm surges

Or the BBC to Salford.

Oh hang on,

OK I agree with you T8

A fair idea, but I think you'd have to move it a little further out than just the other side of the M42 as you'd have content with the arrivals/departure overflying Coventry, Birmingham, Kenilworth, Leamington Spa, etc. This one of the main constraints for airports should you want to maximise capacity, in addition to their own physical footprint.

It's not impossible, but I suspect if you were going to be a new hub, you'd be better of putting it closer to the M40...e.g. where RAF Honiley was.


Personally I'm not sure why the airport, if it's going to create jobs and growth as the proponents claim, should be focused on the South East of the UK. Surely there needs to be one further north to help the economy up there, instead of trying to cram yet more development in the South East.


It's surprising to see what the "Hub" actually delivers today in terms of transfer passengers. Heathrow is mostly a Point-to-Point operation.

I would vote for extra runway(s) capacity at LHR, just beef up the existing infrastructure to cope with extra passengers.
To start from scratch seems financially impractical, compared to extra investment in an existing facility.

I don't want to hear about the noise pollution, we live in a city.....it's noisy. We also get 'quiet time' at night.

My son's house is between JFK and LGA, along with several thousand others, funny thing is that I rarely hear complaints from the locals there.

Rant over, just so fed up with all the nimbys :mad:

I suggest instead of pumping more money into what will always be a far too small LHR they should look at ways of making LGW much more attractive to airlines.
Changing the LGW name to LHR 2 would be a good start.

There was a similar proposal called Heathwick.
Build a second runway at LGW and link it with Heathrow with a 15 minute airside shuttle train and basically turn LGW into Heathrow South.
Interesting plan, basically combine two airports into one.

Without wishing to start some kind of internet based argument, that comes accross as a rather arrogant Londoner's view in my opinion, oscietra.

Perhaps London does have 20% of the country's GDP, but I am sure that the affected surrounding area (in this case the West and Midlands) also contribute significantly. It's also a fairly irrelevant statistic, in my view - unless the data was analysed to see what relevance it had to air travel.

I'd suggest that international air travel connections are important to the Midlands as a major manufacturing region of the country, and likewise the South West, as this is where the majority of aerospace manufacturing in the UK takes place (an industry in which we are number two in the world, after the US).

I would imagine that manufacturing regions inherently need good air connections because there is a good amount of travel required in order to serve export markets (the increase of which is of course essential to resolve our country's budget defecit). As someone based in Bristol, the ability to get to Heathrow in under two hours and consequently pretty much anywhere I need to go in the world relatively easily is invaluable, particularly as a global manufacturing organisation.

If Heathrow were to close and be replaced by a Thames Estuary airport, it would be much more inaccessible for point to point travel by the majority - or at the very least extremely inconvenient - and that would include the residents of West London as well, don't forget. In that situation, the benefit of a UK hub would be lost: I may as well simply fly from BRS to AMS and fly on from there. That can't be good for our own economy, surely?

I'd also add that as that Daily Wail article does state that McLoughlin points out that any decision should be in the interests of the UK as a whole.

Financial services aside, much of the rest of the UK contributes significant amounts to the country's balance of payments. To overlook this from a strategic perspective in terms of infrastructure planning would be extremely short sighted in my opinion.

Ideally they would build a new airport on open space somewhere just North of London. Accessible within a reasonable time via HS2 by Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, but still London's hub. Of course people would flock to that just as they did with LHR and in 50 years time start moaning about noise again.

Whatever they do, they've missed the boat. People are already learning to avoid LHR unless London is your final stop. In the 20 years it takes them to approve/build anything it will be a white elephant. For that reason LHR 3rd runway really is the only viable option, and it needs to be forced through as a matter of urgency after the 2015 elections.

The report is out today.

Shortlist:
New runway at Heathrow
Lengthen Heathrow North runway to 6000m so it can act as two runways
Lengthen Gatwick south runway



How much did this report cost?

We'll on the BBC just there they mentioned the Boris proposal didn't make the short list but they're going to waste further money on investigating it. Listening to Davies on the TV give me the impression that the UK has no ambition and is happy to be doing the minimum needed.

It was always going to be challenging for Thames Hub to make its voice heard above a very well-financed and slick Heathrow lobbying team, who have everything to lose and are very well connected. It's good that the commission has recognised that, and levelled the playing field somewhat by requiring further funded investigation into the Hub proposal and its wider implication.

Given it's a much less well understood proposal, this does seem prudent, and also gives it time for people to get more information. For those who call time on Thames Hub, I'd highlight the story of the tortoise and the hare....

Here's the Press Release, including a link to the 228 page interim report:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/a...interim-report

I was very disappointed with Howard Davies. Very modest ambition, some overly simplistic anti-hub airport comments (divorced from the issue of Heathrow/Thames Hub, he just doesn't see the need for a hub) and some off the wall and hugely disruptive sticking plaster solutions with the "extension of an existing runway" fudge the daftest I've heard yet. Startlingly short-sighted.

At least the sensible Thames Hub proposal at the Isle of Grain has been identified as the only Estuary option:

www.fosterandpartners.com/ThamesHub/

http://static.progressivemediagroup....ary/thames.jpg

Few things to cover based on the report this morning and the various interviews.

Firstly, I'm not entirely sure what Howard Davies was on about with the hub vs point-to-point comments. He pointed to the growth in point-to-point at the other London airports and then uses that to suggest that London doesn't need a bigger hub. Isn't the real reason that this growth has occurred because the growth has largely been from low cost and/or charter carriers. If there had been sufficient space at Heathrow I am sure that there would have been a similar level of growth at Heathrow.

Second, Howard Davies talked about the constellation of airports around London and the capacity that they provide. Unfortunately a constellation approach to the UK hub does not generate the transfer traffic that is important in developing services to new destinations in places such as China where the flow of transfer passengers is key to the success of the service. In addition, whilst there is no doubt that there is significant capacity left in the London airport system (mostly at Stansted) the fact that this capacity remains and the discounting of the landing fees by MAG surely shows that the constellation approach doesn't work.

Third, Gatwick. Yes it needs more capacity but this cannot happen in isolation. As was pointed out by Boris Johnson simply adding capacity there will not get the major global airlines to move from Heathrow.

Fourth, I can understand why the Isle of Grain is still in the list but requiring further assessment. It appears that the commission is rightly looking at more than just "airport capacity" and is actually wanting to consider the socio-economic implications of shutting Heathrow and replacing it with an airport on the other side of London. In the end however I still believe that this will not be the option taken forward because of a mix of cost, the socio-economic factors and location.

And finally Heathrow. The double length runway won't be the final option, purely because on a balance of risk it's a bad idea. I assume it was put in to show that they were considering non airport generated ideas.