Expansion at Heathrow Airport

BAR UK position (1st November 2011)

The policy decision of the new government, not only to ban an additional runway at Heathrow but also any new runways at Gatwick or Stansted, is hard to comprehend.

The previous Secretary of State for Transport himself (Philip Hammond) acknowledged that airports are a vital infrastructure for any country, so denying them to that part of the country that is short on capacity is difficult to reconcile. It’s also in opposition to the government's own strategy of increasing international trade by being 'open for business'.

Without a substantive change of policy, Great Britain will be by-passed

Airports are privately funded and do not require massive public finance commitments; the airport operators and their airline customers pay for them. Railways, however, require billions of pounds of public money and are a huge drain on public finance requirements.

Railways will play an important part in providing transport to and from airports, but even the high-speed HS2 line will not be a substitute for short-haul UK air routes.

Supporting the call for more airport capacity to serve the capital is the Mayor of London.

He has great concerns about London diminishing as a world-class city because of its inability to serve the expanding markets in the world; he does not wish to see other cities grow at London’s expense.

Whatever proposals the Mayor may ultimately make, and even if funding is immediately available, any new airport would not be operational until at least 2030.

Meanwhile, Heathrow is operating to capacity and business threatens to leach away from the UK.

BAR UK, with others, looks to engaging with government and seeking the earliest possible review of its strategy. Meanwhile, our long-stated position on expansion at Heathrow, even if it is an interim solution, must remain.