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Ministers and flight bosses will ignore airport consultation
Andrew Neather, Evening Standard29 Feb 2008
The Government's Heathrow expansion consultation closed this week, amid protests at the airport and the Commons.
There is no sign it has made the slightest difference to ministers' and the aviation industry's determination to push ahead with a third runway and a sixth terminal.
Yet the business case is shaky. It is hard to see companies relocating just because of the state of Heathrow — and in any case 44 per cent of flights into the airport are transfers. Other business advocates have argued that it is possible both to expand Heathrow and make it greener.
But while buildings can certainly be made less wasteful, there is no way around the basic point of a bigger airport — lots more flights.
The expansionists' only real answer to that is carbon trading, whereby airlines have to pay for permits for their emissions. These will be traded on the European market from 2012.
But the way ministers want to rig carbon costs and baselines is an accounting trick. A study by Ernst and Young found that even with emissions trading, aviation's emissions will increase by 83 per cent by 2020. Yet ministers claim that they can expand Heathrow at the same time as reducing the UK's emissions.
There is no mistaking ministers' irritation over having to take engage in consultations at all. Lord Foster unwittingly expressed their mood when his new Beijing airport opened. This week, he said pointedly that it had taken less time to build — four years — than the public inquiry into building Terminal 5.
But, of course, that's the difference between a dictatorship and a democracy.
Reader views (1)
It upsets me that all we hear is how London will lose its edge if we don't have the extra runways - Paris has this many and Frankfurt that many - what is never mentioned is the fact that London has many more airports on it's doorstep than either of these - ie Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton , City and Stanstead.
It is no surprise though, given that Heathrow is owned by a Spanish construction company, of course they want to build, what is a shock though is that they have not opted for seven million "luxury" flats on the proposed site of the runway.
It really is time that this airport and it's ever hungry and disgusting disregard for people's lives is brought to task. Before you all start shouting, yes I do live near the airport and no I will not move, 17 years ago when I bought my first house there were 280,000 flights or so and a Government promise that there would be no more, many many broken promises later we are staring at 800,000.
One final thought, that recent crash, engine problems (maybe) at 2 miles from airport = crash inside airport boundary and champagne all round for the airport for managing the situation, those two miles took 40 seconds to complete, from failure to respond to belly in grass. If the engines had failed 40 seconds earlier then instead of grass it would have been Hounslow High Street - I truly believe that if the Government go for it then should the worst happen they should be jailed by the HSE for culpable homicide, I am sure they can do the maths
- Kevin, Wraysbury, 29/02/2008 14:27
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