In January this year, Geoff Hoon ended the long running debate over whether Heathrow should be granted permission to construct a further third runway. BAA the owners of Heathrow have pushed hard for its expansion on the grounds that unless the Heathrow was given the go ahead to expand it was in real danger of losing its key position as the changeover airport connecting Europe and Aisa. Schipol, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Charles de Gaulle are seen as keen competitors for this valued market. The city of London has also thrown their weight behind the proposal to maintain their position as the major financial centre.

Clearly airport pollution and increased noise were the main reasons why numerous local councils and nearly 7 million people complained to the proposal, as this decision flies in the face of the government’s carbon reduction program. This is in addition to 700 homes being demolished and the likely loss of the village of Sipson.

The labour government contend that it will bring above 50,000 jobs whilst the runway is built and in excess of nearly 8,000 jobs once concluded. The fact remains that Heathrow is an iconic airport and is presently just behind Atlanta and O’hare for passenger numbers and the government would have been in danger of being hard pressed to be regarded as being culpable for its decline from grace. The Tories have advanced creating new airport for the London area, however, given that Heathrow parking facilities are all in place for both on and off airport car parks and a business infrastructure serving the airport is already in position. This alternative proposal would without doubt be costly and come up against opposition elsewhere and hurt Heathrow’s future prospects.

For example there are over 30 purpose built Heathrow airport hotels near the airport and the business community passengers stopping over and the expense of replicating the motorway network and new Heathrow car parks would be onerous exercise.

 

Filed under: Good Articles

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.