Heathrow doesn’t need a third runway
Posted on Friday 16 January, 2009
Filed Under Society
LET’S not be hypocritical here; like most Londoners who go on holiday, take weekend breaks, and sometimes travel for work, I do use Heathrow from time to time. Not when I can possibly avoid it, though.
I prefer Eurostar for meetings in Brussels and Paris, and as I live only a short bus ride from Euston, it works out quicker to catch the train to Edinburgh or Glasgow. When I need to visit Rotterdam, London City comes in handy. If I have to pay for a flight from my own pocket, I normally end up with one of the cheaper carriers operating out of Luton or Gatwick.
But for intercontinental routes, there is often no realistic alternative to a 30-mile taxi schlepp across the capital in the early hours of the morning, in order to arrive – bleary-eyed and the mandatory two hours ahead of departure – at LH Bloody R.
Frequently I find myself propping up the bar [noises off: my heart bleeds for you, Dave] or buying stuff I don’t need in some of the numerous ‘tax free’ retail outlets, largely out of sheer boredom.
Yes, as you can probably gather, I am not a fan. The logic of the proposition that making Heathrow any bigger will in any way make it better – or, in the jargon, ‘enhance my passenger experience’ – is beyond me. BAA is patently incapable of ensuring the smooth running of the five terminals that are there now.
The government’s proposal to give the go-ahead for a sixth terminal and a third runway is misguided on a number of levels. Let’s start with some baser political considerations. Yesterday’s decision is tantamount to Labour kissing a number of marginal constituencies in west London very firmly goodbye.
That is presumably the explanation for John McDonnell’s Heseltine Moment, which incidentally secured a glowing write-up in the Daily Mail, a feat hitherto way beyond the grasp of any of Labour’s diminishing coterie of backbench Trotskyists. Hopefully he has just secured his re-election.
More importantly, bang goes Labour’s environmentalist credentials, which have long been shaky at the best of times. It would be physically impossible to rip up Sir Nicholas Stern’s 2006 report on how to save the planet, simply because that document is 700 pages thick. But metaphorically speaking, weedy Geoff Hoon has done just that, gifting BoJo and Cameron a popular cause in the process.
The reality is that, rather than facilitating ever growing numbers of flights – and a third runway at Heathrow will boost capacity by 222,0000 flights a year – the government needs to be looking at ways of slashing back the demand for air travel.
Some of the means that this could be achieved – ranging from promotion of videoconferencing to the construction of high speed rail routes – are relatively painless. Others, such as rationing entitlement to flights, will hurt. But to avoid the necessity altogether is simply grave political cowardice.
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13 Responses to “Heathrow doesn’t need a third runway”
Socialists are for economic development; jobs; excellent transport infrastructure and means of transport.
Socialists are against nimbys (just rehouse them), monopolies and the status quo.
Note the utter Malthusian poverty of “the government needs to be looking at ways of slashing back the demand for air travel.” Vaccines, eh, they should never have been invented; God knows how much strain they put on food and housing supplies.
How much does Eurostar cost to get to Paris (£100 plus?) How much does Ryanair cost to get Paris?
So of course the 3rd runway should be built.
Do you greeny socialists think the railways should never have been allowed into centralish London, as the proto greens then argued?
I mean (tens of?) thousands were made homeless by the rail terminals and lines. Indeed the railways never made into really central London so we were denied a Great Central Station and instead have to get the tube from Liverpool St to Paddington for, say, a Norwich to Reading trip.
It doesn’t mean that airport expansion is necessarily always good – maybe rail would sometimes be better. The calculations are currently done on the basis of profit; socialists would work out what gets most people the furthest and quickest.
So build a high speed rail network. Build new technology (saw an interesting article about vacuum travel in a large tube – Europe to USA in 10 mins). Incredible, you think? We have devised no original form of mass transport since the car and plane 100 years ago (that I can think of) but advanced considerably in other areas e.g. electronics, medicine.
Build all those rail schemes Thameslink 2000, Crossrail that they were talking about when I first moved to London, 25 years ago!
But build now 3,4,5,10,40 runways at Heathrow. Turn all Berkshire into Airport Britain.
Others, such as rationing entitlement to flights, will hurt.
Which is precisely why no political party would ever consider implementing such an extremist green policy – it would be electoral suicide.
Persephone – sadly, I think you are right. Best forget all this politics and become an outright nihilist then, huh?
Southpawpunch – are you playing up to your (mis)characterization by others on here now? Of course we must stop the airport expansion. I know Piers Corbyn told you that global warming is a load of gibberish, but when it comes to the hard sciences we must listen to the mainstream.
I’m also a bit alarmed at the new technologies you mention. I think too many people would desperately like to see me be sucked by a vacuum back to the States!
McDonnell hasn’t necessarily secured his re-election. It might now be in the interests of his constituents to vote not just for an individual who opposes the third runway, but for a party who does and whom might form a government. It is logical, therefore, for local floating voters who oppose the runway to vote Tory….
P.S. “Turn all Berkshire into Airport Britain..”? “vacuum travel in a large tube – Europe to USA in 10 mins”?
I assume southpawpunch has a special device for removing his tongue when it gets stuck so far int his cheek….
Jeez, I’m glad that SPP still has some sense, because it looks as if Dave and half the rest of the left have taken leave of thiers.
Limiting the number of cheap flights/preventing infrastructure development/cutting CO2 emissions mean less economic activity, and restrictions on the living standards of the working class. Whether you support that happening or not is a political choice that you can make. It is not something dictated by science – scientific knowledge merely gives you evidence to base your conclusions on. There is a case to be made that increasing carbon emmissions would in fact reduce the vulnerability of the poorest to climate change – the chinese for instance are certainly less vulnerable than they would have been 30 years ago.
Environmentalism is so obviously a form of bourgeois ideology, i’m really shocked that people on the left lap it up so keenly. If our national economy doesn’t produce much carbon (as it is based on services rather than industry), a system of trading/kyoto or similar initiatives will give the UK a competetive advantage against India or China. If capitalists need to drive down living standards to restore profitability, doing it in the name of saving the planet is a much easier pill to persuade people to swallow. Seriously guys, critical faculties please.
Why at Heathrow? Why not demolish part of Lambeth and/of Southwark? Then the new airport would be handier for the city – Britain doesn’t really need anything but banks and airports, and some cleaners and maintenance workers who could be housed in detention camps for illegal immigrants. Lambeth and Southwark are doing nothing useful they’re hotbeds of social housing, and a magnet for the underclass.
Presumably the pro-runway crowd are arguing, then, that the huge growth in air travel in recent times has been a progressive development for the working class? You want to flag that up a bit more if that’s the case. Why not sing it from the rooftops. Things haven’t been so bad in recent years at all then?
Alternatively, you could accept that the class that benefits the most from more flights -and uses them most – is the rich upper middle class. And, hey, why not use the same growth and jobs argument to support the retention – and expansion – of trident?
I really don’t see how it isn’t a progressive development for the working class. Fair enough, the rich fly the most, as they do with practically everything else, as they can afford to do it. However, if you tax flying heavily, or restrict new development and maintain prices artificially hight, then who will find it more difficult to afford to fly? The working class. And who is it disrupting flights, campaigning against expansion? It’s not the massed ranks of the proletariat, its the privilegded children of the bourgeoisie.
Trident is a system specifically designed to kill people. Flights are specifically designed to move people around the world, whatever their side effects might be. The comparison is specious. Are better TVs or more trains or cheaper, nicer food regressive for the working class then, or is it something specific about planes? Or does the working class need austerity and control to prevent it consuming too much? I’m keen to find out.
PS. A new campaign for Heathrow expansion – sign up today http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=44525127543
“Are better TVs or more trains or cheaper, nicer food regressive for the working class then”
No, we need more of them.
“or is it something specific about planes?”
Yes. If the cumulative effect of an excess of them is the poorer parts of the planet getting trashed.
I think we agree Dave. Describing McDonnell as a Trot might be a point of disagreement but not much else.
A third runway is essential for reducing lemon-sucking Berkshire suburbanites to nerve-shattered wrecks squatting in their newly worthless homes.
Hopefully six months of this might result in a Ballardian collective breakdown; Who could fail to wholeheartedly anticipate the prospect of upturned Range Rovers smouldering in the short rough at Royal Wokingham, fast-growing herbacious borders draped with the innards of local council executives, quantity surveyors trapped in their ghastly homes by newly feral gymkhana ponies?
Eyes on the prize mon fréres.
Heathrow obviously does not need more noise, pollution and congestion. However, I disagree that air travel needs to be curbed as it still represents the only way of getting to a lot of places.
Thanks to Labour’s failure to invest in our rail and road infrastructure, we are left with no choice but to fly many places. Until this is sorted out, air travel needs to remain near the top of the priority list.
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