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London will lose its status as a leading city for business unless Britain's second high-speed railway connects Heathrow with the capital, Conservative think tank the Bow Group warned today.
The Government is considering proposals to build the next stage of the high-speed rail network, connecting London and Scotland.
But in a report backed by Lord Heseltine, who approved the route for High Speed 1 from St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel, the Bow Group said: "If the new rail link does not build a direct link from London to Heathrow, it may as well not be done at all."
The Tory group's chairman, Tony Lodge, said Heathrow was "isolated", damaging London's business potential.
He said: "Heathrow is one of the most difficult national airports in Europe to reach by rail - its capacity and potential is being thwarted by poor transport into central London."
Reader views (4)
This thinking is behind the game.
Videoconferencing will gradually displace air travel, as the oil price rises and businesses get wise to the fact that air travel is very wasteful of time and money. A few minutes less on the train won't change that.
We'd do better to solve problems of traffic congestion within and around London.
- Jim, Sw19, London, UK, 09/03/2010 09:26
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Heathrow is already well connected to central London by the Heathrow Express. If its a fast, direct link to other parts of the city they want - isn't Crossrail already going to solve that problem?
- Brent, London, 09/02/2010 11:59
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Heathrow is a very bad airport and too far away from the City and the centre of London. And it takes still more time to get through the airport than the actual transport to town. Dreadful.
- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London, 20/01/2010 19:32
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Crikey, how quickly do they need to get from Heathrow to central London?!
I often use the Heathrow Express service; it takes 15 minutes to central London - and, amazingly, is always on time. I've never known it run late.
Now they're talking about building a new high speed station interchange way north of the airport; it'll take at least 15 minutes to get from the terminals to it.
It would make more sense to put some effort into reducing the quite appallingly poor immigration services on arrival.
- N O'S, Kentish Town, 20/01/2010 14:14
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