Plans to expand Heathrow Airport have been described as a ‘once-in-a-generation project that will connect Britain to global growth’, but with a price tag of £14bn, is it really value for money?
We posed this question following the publication last week of Heathrow Airport Ltd’s expansion masterplan, which is now subject to a 12-week consultation.
As noted last week, the project includes moving the courses of several small rivers, replacing utilities, burying the M25 in a tunnel as it passes under the route of the new runway and its associated taxiways, and building several new – and very large – car parks.
To paraphrase a Heathrow spokesperson, an expanded airport will deliver thousands of new jobs and provide an economic boost for Britain and its future generations. For others, it represents decades of disruption, more air and noise pollution, and the loss of 3,750 homes.
For 36 per cent of last weeks poll respondents, any expansion should take place at another airport, followed by 24 per cent who agree that Heathrow’s proposed plan is the only realistic option for maintaining the UK’s position as major air transport hub.
Of the 556 votes cast, a fifth (20 per cent) agree that airport expansion should be shelved, 16 per cent favour a wholly new airport, and four per cent went for ‘none of the above’.
The idea of attracting more motorists to Heathrow stirred the ire of a number of respondents, including Another Steve, who said: “Traffic wise this proposal is lunacy. Currently, during busy periods the M25 is stationary, particularly around Heathrow, and that’s even after extra lanes have been added to try and address this problem. Now it is proposed to put even more traffic onto the M25 through the Heathrow expansion and that’s after the absolute chaos that will be caused by the proposed rerouting of the M25.”
Covering a number of expansion related issues, Lawrence vK-B said: “Add a runway at Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester. LHR is full, the space for expansion is wrong and there is no network effect. Push balanced infrastructure spend across the country and makes HS2 viable. Billions into a gridlock proposal is a notion that is born out of zero strategy innovation and implemented by the unthinking.”
Looking at the threat of increased pollution, John Armstrong said: “It is indeed lunacy to expand Heathrow. Apart from all the other reasons mentioned above we’ve just been told that we aim to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Expanding the pollution and CO2 generator that is Heathrow is indeed shooting yourself in the foot just before running a marathon.”
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Traffic wise this proposal is lunacy. Currently, during busy periods the M25 is stationary, particularly around Heathrow, and that’s even after extra lanes have been added to try and address this problem. Now it is proposed to put even more traffic onto the M25 through the Heathrow expansion and that’s after the absolute chaos that will be caused by the proposed rerouteing of the M25. A significant proportion of people have to travel to Heathrow by car, they have no choice or feasible alternative. This proposal will add to traffic chaos, it will add to environmental damage and it will cost the country many millions in lost productivity and health problems.
Heathrow has reached it’s capacity and must not attempt to expand further. More use must be made of regional airports. And, exactly the same is true for Gatwick.
Why do ‘a significant proportion of people have to travel to Heathrow by car’? More could be done now. Far more must be done in the future. Of course if all of those extra passengers just jump in their cars, the roads will gridlock. If it is to work at all, it has to come with vastly improved public transport provision. I know, let’s have a plan: https://www.heathrow.com/file_source/Company/Static/PDF/Heathrow_STP_inter.pdf
Do all three runways need to be equal length?
Different aircraft have different take off distances. Make the third runway shorter and use it for the 33% that don’t need the full length.
London’s new runway should be in … Birmingham … no, hear me out! There is already a planned rail spur from Heathrow connecting to HS2 and a similar spur could connect to Birmingham airport – or relocate the HS2 route & the Interchange station slightly, the planned route is already close: https://www.globalairrail.com/images/news/2015/Midlands-HS2-Growth-Strategy-25.jpg
The traffic problems of M25/M4 around Heathrow notwithstanding, that airport has reached its capacity and being in what is essentially a residential area of outer London should not be expanded. Gatwick could use a 2nd runway far easier that Heathrow and the extra journey time from Heathrow to Gatwick is only 1/.2hour. BUT, if expansion is the game that why not Manston. Its a huge airfield essentially in the middle of nowhere. I believe that it has the longest runway in EU and would only require an upgraded or new terminal building. It already has pretty good dual carriage way links to the M20/M2. Upgrading those would be fairly simple compared to building a tunnel for the M25. Also take off/landing could be over the sea lessening the overall environmental impact.
Heathrow’s Terminal 5 cost £4.2billion a decade ago, just to give an idea of what that might cost.
It is indeed lunacy to expand Heathrow. Apart from all the other reasons mentioned above we’ve just been told that we aim to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Expanding the pollution and CO2 generator that is Heathrow is indeed shooting yourself in the foot just before running a marathon.
Gatwick is a far better place to look at expansion. with only a few cows to disturb, the second runway could expand flight numbers with minimal disruption.
The decision to expand Heathrow expansion, despite the cost of massive infrastructure projects is SO illogical that a cynical person might think that the committee has some hidden agenda..
I have worked around both Heathrow and Gatwick, and there is no doubt which one is easier (read cheaper) to expand, so why does the least suitable choice always get the nod ?
Of course, if the climate change activists start to get significant political traction, we may not need any airport expansion anywhere in the UK, after-all, there’s no such thing as a “green airport”.
Expand Liverpool airport.
It is close to the centre of the country and runways can be into the Mersey esturary
Birmingham makes more sense than Manston or Gatwick or Liverpool. All this whataboutery though ignores the fact that all these options have already been considered
Some years ago BA decided to withdraw all of their international services from Manchester Airport on the grounds that they were not profitable, painting themselves into the Heathrow corner. To judge how wise that decision was just look at the number of international flights at MAN, to every continent except South America, and one example in particular Emirates three flights a day to Dubai carrying about 1500 passengers, and not at a loss!
Particularly if they’d started with the northern ‘V’ of HS2 fisrt. Half the country would then have been within a couple of hours of two international airports with two runways each and with a quicker rai link between them than getting between Gatwick and Heathrow.
Perhaps the project should start any project with sensible infrastructure, linking the proposed airports together and with major cities – well that just about sums up the problem – I am unlikely to see that happen in my lifetime!
We have a number of airports around London and further afield without any serious joined up transport links – just a bits and pieces of road and rail which make travel slow and painful.
Given that there are questions around the CO2 and other pollutants surrounding aircraft in particular, most of which is in the facilitation of leisure activities, ie holidays, adding more opportunities to pump CO2 into the upper atmosphere is not really very sensible.
Those nice Americans are pulling out of Mildenhall, Suffolk, shortly, leaving a ready built airbase wth a runway that’s capable of taking the Galaxy giant transport aircraft.
We would need to improve the access links, but it would not cost an amazing number of billions and cause ridiculous disruption.
Like HS2, another London centric, overpriced white elephant ?
Global warming is not going to be helped in any form, by another runway . Anywhere. I’ve certainly not helped in the past, if only because flying around Europe et al has been the ?only alternative to motoring. Especially with the idiocy of Brexit looming. We really do have to consider our previous carefree means of travel and way of life in a fresh light–and no, I don’t like the idea either–but dare I mention Global Warming? I am an old git now, so I have travelled care-free all-over for decades, as expect most of you have. Seems those days are drawing to a close, before it all climbs rapidly upwards and beyond our control. Still means I’m booked for Greece later this year………………
I think a new airport is preferable, constructed on higher ground situated away from the coastline, to try and avoid problems with the rise in sea levels and coastal erosion.
Modular Construction using the latest technology and materials available, with options to reconfigure the layout and rotate/ incline runways for optimum performance if /when necessary.
Damage limitation to the environment foremost in our minds
Close liasson with aircraft manufacturers ie teamwork essential.
The emphasis should be on Hybrid and Electric planes
People forget that Heathrow has been asset stripped by its foreign owners & is now billions in debt. How is it then going to find £14 billion for this long 3500 m runway over the M25?
I think it better to go back to the original idea of a short 2000 m runway, that would not go over the M25 & be much cheaper to build. Even a 1900 m (6234 ft) runway could take turboprops, bizjets, regional jets & the smaller members of the Boeing 737 & Airbus A320 airliners. If the small airliners move to the new short runway, it frees up a lot of slots on the existing two main runways.
Luton has an affordable plan to lengthen its runway to just over 9000 ft & that could handle low cost, long haul flights.
The traffic at Heathrow is congested now. I would build a short dual carriageway (on stilts/long bridge above the reservoir) to link junction 5 of the M4 with junction 13 of the M25. That way M4 traffic to the South of Heathrow, no longer has to go past Heathrow, thus bypassing a bottleneck. Talk of a congestion charge on the Heathrow stretch of the M25 would just create chaos on local roads as drivers avoided it. Just look at the near empty toll road M6 in comparison to the congested old M6 through Birmingham.
Also this new Airbus A321XLR may make long haul flights up to 4700 miles viable from smaller regional airports.
Is no one looking over the horizon? We have Climate Change not just knocking on our door but about to knock the house down. A jumbo burns 4 litres of fuel a second and there are on average 8000 to 9000 planes in the sky 24/7, do the maths….If 14 Billion pounds is going to be spent it should not be on runways and carparks, because there is every possibility the past will catch up with us and present the new future before they are completed. The money should be spent on sustainable living and as Nick Cole points out, stop the extravagant use of limited resources for the whims of peoples desire to holiday in far off places.
Aviation does not only produce lots of CO2, it consumes also lots of energy (oil). Engineers! Let´s use our abilities to increase the level of sustainability! Our grandchildren will be grateful.
Those nice Americans are pulling out of Mildenhall, Suffolk, shortly, leaving a ready built airbase with a runway that’s capable of taking the Galaxy giant transport aircraft.
We would need to improve the access links, but it would not cost an amazing number of billions and cause ridiculous disruption.
That would finally mean that there was Mile 1 of motorway anywhere in Norfolk or Suffolk. Maybe someone would then expand the mobile phone network and every other piece of infrastructure that East Anglia is always at the fag end of. (Peeved Trac’or Boi Talkin’)
Perhaps Mike/tract-or Buoy is unaware that the main reason that there are at present “0” miles of Motorway in E Anglia is quite simple. The areas most illustrious resident (She!) will not allow it. She never did want the ‘hoy-poloy’ of East London to be able to drive towards her second (or is it 10th) home in their millions every weekend. I kid you not!
Just in case any Engineer was still under the mistaken impression that ‘we are all in this together’
I suspect the flunkies/minions of she!, would be very happy to see the A10 between Cambridge & King’s Lynn dualled, as it would make their lives easier.
Unwarranted attacks on HM are frankly unacceptable. Having spent every summer for the past 60 years in Norfolk, and over the years seeing the roads improve every year, welcoming the A14 upgrades (but missing some of the village stop-offs as a result) I think we should focus on the actual question. And the growth of Norwich airport would seem to indicate Mike B is missing the point to gratuitously attack the monarchy. Not On.
Add a runway at Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester. LHR is full, the space for expansion is wrong and there is no network effect. Pushes balanced infrastructure spend across the country and makes HS2 viable. Billions into a gridlock proposal is a notion that is bourne out of zero strategy innovation and implemented by the unthinking.
I very much agree with the idea that (road) traffic around Heathrow is rubbish; Gatwick is much more friendly. Perhaps if HS2 had been focused on the UK need for infrastructure it would have gone to Gatwick, rather than the traffic nightmare that is London; this would have meant that the large airports of the Midlands (B’ham, Manchester, East Midlands) would be able to integrate sensibly with London. This would of course make the HS2 more useful and most likely reduce the costs all-round (would the managerial gravy train be smaller?)
However, as others have pointed out large rural areas (Wales, North East, E Anglia) miss out on the connectivity to major airports! But, perhaps to Westminster people, this is of no import
Unthinking; when could “Infrastructure and Projects Authority” have been accused thinking of the public need?
Many years ago I used to make use of BA flights to various European airports from Manchester but when BA stopped these their routing was via Heathrow. Gave up on Heathrow pretty soon and now use non-BA links mainly via Schiphol – which has a “smaller” third runway and is well arranged.
Having spent every summer for the past 60 years in Norfolk, and over the years seeing the roads improve every year, welcoming the A14 upgrades (but missing some of the village stop-offs as a result) .
I refer to my earlier comment, Not withstanding any offense to Aunty Liz, the A14 ain’t a motorway and the A11 has only been dueled in the stretch from Barton Mills to Attleborough in the last 10 years. Brought up in the Elveden area I can say without any hesitation the Yorkshire folk that I currently reside with would moan buckets faced with the mobile phone reception around the Brecks. The late electrification of the area (some properties were still not connected to the mains until the 80’s, Gasification, no natural gas until the late 80’s in our area the town gas being removed decades earlier. Local BBC and Anglia TV Late 60’s. Norfolk and Suffolk only 90 miles from London are always at the fag end of development. And sorry Mike B though I understand your PoV. This is not the result of Aunty Liz’s complaining, just the small population spread over a wide area, unsupported by the Labour party since “their all rich farmers there”, and taken for granted by the cons since “We weigh the vote there for the trained chimp with the blue rosette”.
Whilst one should not ‘repeat’ stuff without of course checking it… [though gained from a well respected source -my wife’s uncle -the younger brother of the guy (one of the few of the 48 Manchester Uni 1942 Aeronautics) to survive WW11 flying Lancasters, later who flew his V bomber through the Christmas Island H bomb clouds to sample what killed him at age 55 and who was, until just before he died, Base Commander at RAF Gatow Berlin): the younger brother had been a Director of Whitbread’s beer and on his retirement to Norfolk was invited to join the East Anglia Regional Development Corporation. His first question was “why, when there are motorways to every other point of the compass from London, but NOT ….and what value and growth might such ensure for what was then a somewhat deprived area?” he was given the explanation I repeat! Please Excuse the ‘all in this together’ repeat: but at the same time (2008-12) as the tax-payer bailed out our ‘banks’ to the tune of £1.6 trillion…manufacturing industry (an activity in which surely most Engineers have an abiding interest) was still paying for the grocer’s daughter’s decimation of the real wealth creating economy. There is more, but I suspect this is not time or place to air it!
Allow expansion in other airports, pretty sick of driving halfway across the country to fly relatively short distances.
Aviation seems to get a lot of stick for causing 2% of global C02 emissions, that could be knocked out almost entirely if we all did meatless mondays
I would much rather money was spent in essence by and for the benefit of individual citizens making their own choices about what they want to do…than on military game-playing?
Tell you what: build the air strip, just restrict it to electric only airplanes.
Not sure who “.” is?
My comment is not an attack, unwarranted or gratuitous: it is a statement I believe, based upon its provenience, to be correct. [I did offer a much more detailed analysis, sadly ‘spiked’ by our editor]
I am old enough to recall an episode( early 50s) involving a comment by a Lord no less about one aspect of HMQ’s then approach (subsequently recognised as resulting from advisers completely out of touch with the public mood) which resulted in a scuffle outside the TV studio, a fine of £1.00 for a Breach of the Peace (paid not by the scuffler but by a Court Official) and a dramatic advance in Her Majesties relationship with her subjects: the incident recognised as one of the turning points in enhancing the link between the Royals and the rest of us!
With regard to expanding local airports, it’s worth recalling that before ‘the monster that is Heathrow’ stared to grow, London’s premier airport was Bournemouth (circa. 1950s/60s).
The South has a number of excellent international capable Airports (Eg. Cardiff, Bristol, Exeter, Bournemouth, Southampton) but unfortunately most of these only serve the seasonal holiday trade. This results in silly situations like you can only fly to Geneva in the Winter (Skiing) from a regional airport, any other time of the year you have to use Heath/Wick.
Rather than more expansion around London, we need a joined up travel strategy that serves the UK.
So far only about 3 people have mentioned climate change and the problem with more CO2 being pumped out by more aircraft on a third Heathrow runway. It is quite clear that business and government still don’t get it. Surely the most recent extreme weather the world is putting up with (although not everywhere ) should be a clue. It is surely going to spread both in space and time. Even now with the melting of previously “permanent” ice and permafrost melting much more quickly than even the most pessimistic forecast, should be making even the most blinkered politician and businessman think. But then they must ignoring bad news if it means they must change their minds.
We now have a Climate Emergency, this cannot be addressed by a ‘business as usual’ approach, it is after all how we got here…
“Just one return flight from London to New York produces a greater carbon footprint than a whole year’s personal allowance needed to keep the climate safe.” – ETA.
Fly less. Except that with everyone not going to Spain (or Greece) for their holidays, the roads to Cornwall are going to get even more clogged thus exacerbating pollution. And finding accommodation will be nigh-on impossible and hence more expensive. Tricky this reducing CO2 business… how does the carbon footprint of one 737 with 150 passengers on board compare with 50 additional cars doing 200+ miles? If Wiki is to be believed, a 737 consumes 2.28 L/100 km (103.2 mpg) per seat. If an average saloon does 40 mpg with average of 3 people that’s 120 mpg per seat. Not much in it huh?
Many people are still focusing on London so why is this, London seem to get everything and anyone else gets the scraps.
East Midlands Airport is the second largest cargo hub after Heathrow so it makes sense to expand this as it is well placed with a good road network which can be expanded and it has sufficient land around it for other necessary services to locate. EMA is in the centre of the country and has none of the infrastructure restrictions Birmingham and Manchester have and both are within easy reach by road and rail, and expanding another northern airport would give national covrage.
Until people take away the focus from London and get away from the idea of London being the focal point for everything, then nothing practical will be done and we will still be trying to put a quart into a pint pot with absolutely no benefits to the wider country, or the wider population.
I agree with Mr Martin above. Londoners and MP’s always seem to want Government money to be spent in the London area? EG Wembley National Football Stadium/Olympic Stadium/Cross Rail (£18 Billion!).
If you live in a place like Newcastle and wish to take your kids to say Florida then currently London airports only offer this flying opportunity.
When will our Government support Cap-Ex North of Watford Gap?
What about a lot of the transit traffic on the island airport about 50 k east of Thames linking Kent and the high ground just north and in from Felixstowe. That could protect London from even the greatest sea-level rise [perhaps go for 20 metres embankments first as Swansea proposed] and the link roads at 80 m plus (caissons each side of shipping lanes also 80 m and capable of handling at least some of the tidal Barrage generation to smooth wind – ups and downs of wind generation – shortages of power during still-air days, even weeks). That is looking far enough, UK’s needs beyond 2050. Before that, as a Pilot, Swansea’s project could similarly be altered to protect Gloucestershire OR moved to shorten the length of such a barrage to run north of West Somerset. The finance figures need to include the value of barrage sea-rise protection – incalculable public-value benefit. It is nonsense to say UK cannot afford these 2 projects, along with Humberside, and The Naval area to Southhampton. The Finance can come either from Central Bank (CB money mentioned on their website or at very low rates (suggest 1.5% a third of which (0..5%) can be returned to UK-Treasury from commercial banks). They Only Need 1%. “mark-up” a bit like the old building societies’ mark-up on depositors savings. The “government” and CB will have a lot to answer for when it becomes more widely known the damage done by demutualiastion and unregulated removal of fair deposit rates to savers.
Removal [Mainelli formerly of Gresham college knows of this] of incentives to save and even more harm if it does not act to forestall oncoming ‘stupid’ high inflation if commercially-created digital currency takes root. They should contact me here in Birmingham to thrash out an earlier stage of such money for making [eventually all] buildings Eco-Fit: using inexpensive money at 1% plus 1/2% return to Treasury.
– very reasonable rates on freshly-created money – as it turns out in tiny amounts compared to the waste referred to via frivolous air travel habits which could be shifted 50 km offshore and function happily all noight long