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Fast rail link would ‘cancel need for Heathrow extension’
8 Feb 2010A landmark report on high-speed rail includes modelling for a revolutionary network without a third runway at Heathrow.
Ministers had asked for the study to be based on the assumption that the airport is expanded. But Sir David Rowlands, the outgoing chairman of High Speed 2 which drew up the report, insisted that it also examines the benefits of the ultra-fast train system without an additional runway at Heathrow.
He argued that this was a “sensitivity” needed to ensure that the interaction between high-speed rail and Heathrow could be properly understood.
However, his stance will be seen at Westminster as ensuring that his report can be used by both the current Government and the Tories, if they win the election, who are opposed to expanding Heathrow.
Campaigners seized on the study's analysis of a new rail network without a third runway as potentially opening the door to the Government watering down its support for expansion.
The report, expected to be published next month, also examined whether a high-speed rail link between London and the West Midlands should be connected to Birmingham International airport which is being talked up as an alternative to increasing the size of Heathrow.
A new station could be built close to the Midlands airport off the M42 with access to the capital by rail being cut to 50 minutes or less. Experts say it would be as quick to reach the Birmingham airport from Euston as it takes at present to travel to Heathrow.
Reader views (6)
Pete,Go to Barcelona via Gatwick please. The Tories are on to a vote winner and you know it.
- John Golding, London, 09/02/2010 17:25
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"The Tories are on a vote-loser opposing it..."
Not round here they aren't...
HSL: yes please. Heathrow expansion? no thanks. Which one's more use when the oil runs out?
- Tom, London, UK, 09/02/2010 17:20
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It makes sense to enlarge Birmingham airport rather than impose a third runway on a grotesquely bloated and polluting Heathrow.
- Derek, London, London, 09/02/2010 00:21
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Birmingham was robbed of the 'new' Wembley so what better than to compensate it by sending all of London's pollution to Birnmingham. Yeh! Good idea.
- Tango Mike, Kensington, London, 08/02/2010 21:07
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So, when I want to travel from my home in SW London to, say, Barcelona, I take a train to Vauxhall/Waterloo, take the tube to Euston, and then ANOTHER 50 minute train to an airport at Birmingham?
Are they barking mad? Heathrow expansion, please. The Tories are on a vote-loser opposing it...
- Pete, london, 08/02/2010 17:35
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I'd be interested to know what percentage of Heathrow flights are cargo flights and can't they be routed somewhere else to free up the runway to passanger flights?
- D.W., London, 08/02/2010 13:43
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