And anyway the Aliens are coming.
There’s an Asteroid.
IS have found Saddams WMD’s’
Oil Price will rise nobody can afford to fly.
Saints won’t be in Europe next year so who cares about airports (nicked from the other side)
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OK so I cant remember the exact comparision or numbers so forgive me for estimates, but here goes:
a) Heathrow. Broken promises a-plenty. Huge legal challenges ahead and the current breaching of air quality regs, is why many are saying it will never actually get built but we will waste many more years and cash before we do something else. Cost, if it does go ahead, was something like £19bn and the taxpayer will be picking up lots of this. e.g. Heathrow says it is not for the airport to pay for surrounding transport infrastructure changes needed like for the M25, and these will be £5.7bn. Also refuses to cap future landing charges which are already the most expensive in Europe. Earliest date of operation is thought to be 2025, if at all.
b) Gatwick. Will impact many fewer people. With a 2nd runway it will start to compete more evenly with Heathrow and will offer a genuine choice - not something it does currently - for many airlines. Can be built and operating by 2021. Cost about £9bn - yes, £10bn less than Heathrow. Has already offered a cap on future landing charges to limit costs for passengers - i.e. the airport will take most of the risk on building costs overrunning, which Heathrow will not do.
Heathrow is at 98% capacity already, next to the M4 and M25 car parks. It is already in a very dominant position, why would we make this worse? Dont kid yourself that there are no tourist or short haul flights out of Heathrow, there are plently. I have flown to Majorca from there. There are about 8 flights a day just to Manchester! Roll on HS2…
Would I just give it to Gatwick? No, I would give it to them and immediately go for expansion in Birmingham or Newcastle or somewhere else many miles away from London
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Sorry, but does this in any way invalidate the argument? If current predictions prove to be correct, or even only partially correct, then the question of who threw the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will be totally irrelevant. We’ll all be fucked (or at least our descendants will be), and arguing over who did the bulk of the damage won’t make a whole lot of difference.
You could, of course, take the Lord Lawson/Farage line and insist that this whole climate change mallarkey is a load of old bollocks, but science would hardly be on your side.
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To be honest the residents who would be affected by this have every right to be a bit pissed off. After many years of campaigning, six years ago David Cameron gave an unequivocal promise that a third runway would not be built at Heathrow, “no if’s no but’s”. Six years ago Theresa May said,“like many local residents, i strongly welcome the cancellation of the third runway at Heathrow”. Today Theresa Mayhem said, " we want the benefits of a new runway as quickly as possible". “this decision demonstrates that as we leave the EU we can make a success of Brexit and Britain can be that open, global, successful country we all want it to be, blah blah blah, zzzzzzzzzzzz”. Unsurprisingly the residents are less than impressed with this, one, whose house faces the proposed site said, " We received a promise, we all made life choices based on that, which we believed. I invested in my home, others decided to lay their loved ones to rest here because of it, and we have been betrayed".
One would hope that the British people would learn from this, but i won’t be holding my breath!
One thing that will be put to bed though, is any question of an early election. Mayhem wouldn’t dare, this, coupled with the fact that her constituents voted overwhelmingly to ‘Remain’, would mean she would have a very hard time defending her seat. Her constituents took her at her word six years ago, and have suddenly had a rude awakening regarding her honesty. If this runway saga is still rolling around in about three years, expect Madam Mayhem to be frantically scrabbling around looking for ‘volunteers’ to ‘take ermine’, thereby freeing up a nice safe seat. Preferably one miles away from any airports!
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Meh. Fucking uninspiring stuff from a visionary perspective. You’ve got oil rich sheiks building artificial islands in Dubai, we benefit (in this case) from tight vicinity, meaning we could have feasibly done a Boris Island, built fucking great transport links into Central London, and avoided having ANYONE in the South East being the victim of low level flyover noise or an aviation tragedy.
What do we do? Build a third runway in airspace which is already tremendously busy, with flight paths taking planes over some of the most densely populated real estate in the country.
If you thought New Labour’s stunning idea of letting people use the hard shoulder was infrastructure on the cheap, this goes one better. It’s cheap and dirty.
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Caroline Lucas vs Chris Grayling
As if air pollution wasn’t bad enough in the South already, have another lungful of carbon emissions kids!
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When they build 3rd runway will they try and make sure when a drop of snow hits it they don’t cancel flights? That happens a lot at Heathrow and due to it being so busy has knock on effects.
Some superb lobbying has been going on.
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From someone who has had to endure being on the road selling through the Dubai summer I can assure you climate change is real & is happening.
This was by far the longest & hottest summer in the 23 years I’ve been here 52C
The argument I dismiss is that actions in the UK makes any difference when the rainforest are being destroyed so Brazil can export cheap Beef, China is a godawful polluted mess growing at 5% and you all still drive cars.
One small step always starts a journey but this anti pollution journey started years ago and was hijacked by climate change which still can be dismissed as if it were a debating point.
In the time it has taken UK to build one toll road motorway Dubai has built 7 runways, added 1.9 million people to its population.
If the runway is built perhaps you could send more Aid workers to stop the destruction and depopulation of farmland forest etc in Asia/South America?
Stop trading. Build your own factories to make stuff pay the real cost of products not Primark would reduce carbon emissions FAR more than not building one runway.
Best bit so far is that this has AGAIN shown that you should never trust a Politician or anything g they ever say.
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That’s worth repeating.
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Yay! That’s the air quality probem solved
Dutch inventors Tuesday unveiled what they called the world’s first giant outside air vacuum cleaner – a large purifying system intended to filter out toxic tiny particles from the atmosphere surrounding the machine.
“It’s a large industrial filter about eight metres (yards) long, made of steel… placed basically on top of buildings and it works like a big vacuum cleaner,” said Henk Boersen, a spokesman for the Envinity Group which unveiled the system in Amsterdam.
The system is said to be able to suck in air from a 300-metre radius – and from up to seven kilometres (over four miles) upwards. It can treat some 800,000 cubic metres of air an hour, filtering out 100 percent of fine particles and 95 percent percent of ultra-fine particles, the company said, referring to tests carried out by the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) on its prototype.
“A large column of air will pass through the filter and come out clear,” Boersen told AFP, speaking on the sidelines of a major two-day offshore energy conference in Amsterdam.
Fine particles are caused by emissions from burning wood and other fuels as well as industrial combustion, and have “adverse effects on health,” according to the European Environment Agency.
About 90 percent of EU residents are exposed to levels of such particles – which can be carcinogenic – above those recommended by the World Health Organization.
As for ultra-fine particles, they are released by emissions from vehicles as well as aeroplanes, according to Envinity, and can “damage the nervous system, including brain cells, and also cause infections.”
Governments, businesses and airports are already interested in the project, Boersen said.
Another air-purifying system called the “Smog Free Tower” was installed in Beijing last month and launched by the Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde.
Using patented ozone-free ion technology, it can clean up to 30,000 cubic metres of air an hour as it blows past the tower, collecting more than 75 percent of the harmful particles, Studio Roosegaarde said in a statement.
Not sure that the A25 could be built into a “proper road” Phil. It goes through a number of small villages and would require a great many by-passes. I used to live by it as I lived in Oxted for a number of years. It is amazing to think that it used to be the main orbital route around London, not that people used it as such. There is a strong arguement for another orbital motorway another 5 miles out from the M25 but the cost would be prohibitive. Me? I am all for doing a Beeching in reverse and buliding more railways. Containers could be moved more quickly, more sfaely over greater distances and it would be a blessing to get thousands of lorries off of the roads. I travel by train a lot more than I used to and when it works, it is a better way to travel than sitting on a clogged up motorway for hours.
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Totally agree Soggy.
I’d love nothing more than to fly home get on a train maybe make 1 simple change & be home to a station where I could collect a rental car to potter locally
But public transport from Salisbury to Gatwick? With 30k of luggage? Tried it once on Southern Trains via skatesmuff. Never again took longer than the flight home
The general standard of infrastructure in this country is pretty crappy when it comes to our wealth and size is pants. Never mind the chaos caused by fragmented rail monopolies. There are long standing problems with many parts of the country. Why, for example, does it take me as long to drive to the South West as it does to get to the North West? Why isn’t the North East properly connected to the North West?
It has always been London centric, and our Londoners will tell you that even there, there are huge differences in quality and availability of service. Juvenile Unit #1, now identifying as a South Londoner, moans about the crap they have to put up with compared with the North of the city.
Major infrastructure projects are needed all around. The problem is that if it doesn’t end somewhere in London, people aren’t interested.
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"…Yay! That’s the air quality probem solved
To invest just send $5,000 each to Sheikh Phil Al Dubai,c/o Bank of Dubai…
Ah sweet, I’ll put it with my Bar Bill savings 
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Todays Questions that don’t get asked.
Industry / Business are the key drivers for a new Runway in the South East.
The argument is the need for more Long Haul routes (especially into the likes of China) as Globailsation continues apace.
The British Public will not stop buying their new IPhones every 2 years so I guess banning imports & making everything in Blighty is a non starter as you’d go bankrupt pdq.
So.
Gatwick (or LHR) should become a Long Haul Airport only. Kick out all the Charter flights from LGW to give runway slots to Long Haul. Move the Charter guys to Biggin Hill, or Manston, or Farnborough, maybe kick the RAF out of Odiham and move them to Boscombe Down?
Or move all UK connections or planes with a capacity below say 140 from LHR to Northolt - not hard to build a HS3 shuttle link to the LHR Terminals.
Boris Island
This always missed one critical point. It is in the EAST of London. A simple look at a population density map shos that there are far more businesses in the M4 corridor (Swindon - Slough) than in North Kent, equally there are far more PEOPLE to the West of London. So Air Quality argument? More people will use the M25 to get to Boris Island (But we will have Cross rail you cry) which will not help the residents of the Southcoast so much The people to the East tend to use LGW more than LHR anyway.
(Anyone ever tried to take a ferry to Europe from Sheerness? )
Have a nice day 
"Todays Questions that don’t get asked.
Industry / Business are the key drivers for a new Runway in the South East.
The argument is the need for more Long Haul routes (especially into the likes of China) as Globailsation continues apace…"
OK Phil, this is the message coming from organs like the CBI and BCC etc etc.
How much freight really comes via air transport (excluding fresh produce)? Most of it come by sea to ports like Southampton.
How many flights to say, China, are chock-a-block with business men doing deals for the benefit of the UK?
We need numbers, not sound bites made in the press as some sort of justification.
Personally I now do more video conferencing that overseas business meetings. More efficient and frees up time to concentrate on business. I agree there will always be a need for business travel, but I think interested parties are making too big a deal about expansion. Perhaps making better use of existing resources would make more sense, but then that goes against what the interested parties want in terms of their profit motive?
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As a south Londoner born and bred I can concur about the transport south of the river. The tube mostly runs north of the river and despite the odd extension south London has been the poor relation. Croydon has a tram system (trams FFS) but that doesnt run to London and does little to aleviate the local traffic problems in that part of south London. Phil, I feel your pain. The rail links are piss poor. Was reading about Beeching the other day. What a lack of foresight! The infrastructure in this country needs proper joined up thinking and a massive injection of cash. Cant see it happening in my lifetime. The Heathrow decision is another head in the sand moment. It is hard to see it being built and yet more money will be wasted on a wrong decision.
There are plans to build a massive new development nearby and what was green belt land. 12000 houses! This will put further pressure on the beleaguered William Harvey Hospital and on the lower section of the M20 which is already stuffed full of lorries. Ashford does not have the infrastructure for even more development (arrable land is being concreted over at a rate of knots already). The less food we grow ourselves the more we will have to import creating even more road use. Once the land is developed we will never get it back for farming again. The destruction of the green belt is a crime.
Cobham
1% of UK Trade comes by Air
Main produce shipped by Air.
Mobile Phones/Tablets Inkjet Printers Flowers
But most importantly Pharmaceuticals
Fruit & Veg also made up a major part of air freight BUT thanks to GM foods they can be “adopted” to withstand shipping via Sea.
One point that was erronously made on Sky the other days was about the tonnages of Air Freight that LHR handles and the nimby said “Stop Cargo Planes” - Which IS a good idea (they should go to a Midlands airport tbh. BUT she missed the fact that on a standard configuration A380 (BA Qantas Qatar Singapore and others) carries 8,000kgs of Cargo as well as passengers.
In order to reduce Product shipped by Air and the need to go to China then All British Citizens should be BANNED from changing their Smartphones more than once every 3 years.
Would save far more carbon emissions,
