Hi all,
This was in the Guardian today - might interest some, especially if your
house has to be demolished to make way for these runways.
Cheers,
Alastair
New plan for huge airport expansion
Keith Harper, transport editor
Wednesday January 23, 2002
The Guardian
Three controversial new runways for London and the south-east - with
sites
at Stansted, Gatwick and, the one guaranteed to cause most alarm,
Heathrow
- are being considered by ministers as part of their plan for airport
expansion.
Senior Whitehall sources revealed last night that ministers felt that
the
public's demand for air travel would continue to increase by 5% a
year in
spite of September 11.
One source said: "Ministers consider this to be a blip and that
passenger
demand will return as it is beginning to do."
A decision to go for three runways would mark a considerable change in
thinking. Until now, transport ministers have indicated that they were
only looking for one more runway over the next 30 years. The Whitehall
line suggests that ministers have decided that they need to take the
long
term view and prepare the public accordingly.
The likely inclusion of a third runway for Heathrow is the most
surprising
element in the package. The planning inspector at Heathrow's Terminal 5
inquiry advised the government that there was no room for a further
runway, but transport secretary, Stephen Byers, said that he could not
rule one out.
A third runway at Heathrow would make a nonsense of the inspector's
recommended air movements and landings at the airport, which have been
accepted by the government. Passenger numbers would almost certainly
increase beyond the 80-85m a year proposed in the Terminal 5 report.
The site of a third runway is likely to be between the M4 motorway
and the
A4 main trunk road. It would not be as long as the other two and
could be
used for short haul European and domestic flights. It would affect the
village of Harmondsworth and mean the removal of some houses.
The Whitehall sources said that a consultative document to be
published in
the spring would contain a number of options. It would be followed by a
white paper later in the year.
Among the options are a runway at each of the three airports, or two at
Stansted and one at Gatwick, or two at Gatwick and one at Stansted.
Last
night's leak suggests that the government wants to test public
reaction in
advance of its consultative document.
A fierce debate is still going on within government over whether a new
airport should be built in the south-east. Some ministers favour
this, but
they are being told that they would encounter overwhelming opposition
from
the public and that it would be easier to concentrate on an existing
site.
Ministers appear to have ruled out imposing taxes on the airlines and
the
airports to deter people from travelling. They have watched with
increasing concern the development of other European hubs such as
Charles
de Gaulle in Paris, Schipol at Amsterdam and Frankfurt, and are
anxious to
prevent traffic being siphoned away from London.
BAA, the airports operator, has given an undertaking to residents
that it
will not consider building a second runway at Gatwick until 2019. But
it
acknowledges that it could not stand in the way of a government
decision
to renege on the promise.
At Stansted, some residents have started to become alarmed at plans
by BAA
to build a secondary emergency runway at the airport. They believe
that it
conceals a much larger plan, but BAA says that the runway would only
operate in bad weather when the main runway is out of use.
Keith Jowett, chief executive of the Airport Operators' Association,
said:
"The task of developing a 30-year strategy for aviation is huge and
will
involve a number of hard choices, not least to meet the demand for air
travel in the most sustainable manner."
***************************************
Dr. Alastair T. Gardiner
Microbial Photosynthesis Lab 217
Davidson Building
IBLS-Division of Biochemistry & Mol. Biol.
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ
Scotland
Tel. (+44) 141 330 6449
Fax. (+44) 141 330 4620
E-mail. atg3v@udcf.gla.ac.uk
http://www.gla.ac.uk/ibls/BMB/rjc/agardiner.html
**************************************
Personal web pages at
http://www.geocities.com/atg3v
Have a look at my airliner photography at
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