3rd Runway at Heathrow

Clearly there are business trips that cannot be substituted with electronics - but I am sure that there are many that could be. My DD is always flying off to things for her company and she fully acknowledges that they could be better done my email etc - and more quickly.

All those greenies flying to Save the World conferences so they can tell the rest of us how to behave are the ones that get my goat. Hypocrites.

Unless, somehow, actually being with people and talking to people in person really does make a difference... Hmm, now there's a thought.

Heathrow and Gatwick expansion are needed. Anyone buying a house in the area in the last 20 odd years knew what could happen.

Whilst I wouldn't want to live too near an airport, if we want to continue to enjoy holidays abroad, we have to accept it.

There's an interesting comment here.

www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2016/10/25/theresa-may-campaigned-against-a-third-runway-at-heathrow-so

Obviously May never said she would resign if it was built.

If HS2 gets built, it could be just as quick for some Londoners to get to Birmingham airport as to Heathrow.
Heathrow Airport Holdings has spent £30 million lobbying for Heathrow.

As I understand it, much of the future growth in air travel will come from the Chinese and Asian countries. Are we to tell them that they're not allowed to fly after we in the west have enjoyed such amenities fo the past 50-odd years?

We have no choice but to fly to visit our son and family in America. It's hardly a pleasure but if we want to see each other, we've no other option. Star Trek-style transportation would be much better!

I live a few miles away from Heathrow but closer to RAF Northolt. For the vast majority of time I feel as though I am living in the countryside because of the lack of noise except occasionally when the RAF appear to be starting WW3 for a short space of time. I actually like looking at the different planes flying past, some low flying, so modern.

Don't worry folks!!

DH said that by the time it is finished the oil will have run out.

I can't remember what the objections were to the proposals for one in the Thames estuary

Does Theresa May know?

what, about the oil or the proposals for the Thames estuary?

I will get DH to phone her
Perhaps he will be offered a job as a Government adviser

Charleygirl did you know there are 12000 civilian flights in and out of Northolt every year? It used to be 7000 but it was upped to 12000 last year no wonder it sometimes seems busy. Of course that doesn't include all the military/government/royal planes that land there.

When it is dark to the west of London you can see a queue of plane lights flying in one after the other, after already being stacked for ages waiting to join this queue. Apparently the stacking system is often full so they would have to be stacked elsewhere, causing yet more areas to be disturbed.

To me it seems crazy to fly even more planes over such a heavily populated area. It isn't just a matter of the additional noise but also the additional risk of a major disaster due to a plane crash or other problem.

I believe that an airport to the east of London would be more sensible - plenty of empty brownfield space there, as Boris has suggested - and I understand that flight paths could be organised to disturb far fewer people. Or it could even be built on a man-made island offshore as other international cities have done.

Interesting to note than many people who fly into Heathrow are just in transit to other places and never leave the airport. Why not direct these people to airports well away from our busy centralised sites?

DH used to be a civil engineer and says that the proposed re-routing of the M25 (possibly through a tunnel) would cause really major disruption to the M4 and M25 for a very long time. And the M4 to Heathrow is already said to be the busiest stretch of motorway in Europe.

cc I see no mention of rerouting the M25 but they are talking about as you say a tunnel or taking the runway over the M25, whatever way they do it there will be many years of disruption to those living in the area.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37773052

Great comments. Pollution is one of the biggest threats and I wonder if the government will just change the laws and up the legal limit. Someone I know works at a school near Heathrow and posted on F B yesterday that she will lose her home her job and her child will have to find a new school. My heart went out to her.

It's not going to happen in the near future, Morgana!

Your FB friend's child will probably be at Uni by the time work actually starts!

This will be another government shambles.

Heard on the radio that the runway will be uphill...! And there will have to be a ramp over the M25!
Sounds like a good plan....

See the government is too frit to put up a candidate for the by-election. So the voter is being denied to vote on the new runway, presuming the Tory candidate would support the new runway. Democracy is not this governments strong point is it?

Everyone wants good and easy travel and sadly its the price that has to be paid they wont come north (although Birmingham is not north in my opinion ) as everything tends to be geared towards London. There are no commercial airports anywhere near where we live and i feel for the people around the proposed runway i would hate it

"will be a government shambles...", ww? It already is.

Otherwise it'd have been built long ago, or else some other option. So far it has only been yabber yabber.

tanith I was aware that it was busy but not that busy. I seem to see quite a few military planes but it does not bother me.

I agree with your comment about green activists flying around the world bags - I also feel irritated by people who sponsor a child then spend a fortune flying out to visit them - what sense does that make?

Yabber, yabber indeed since Harold Wilson and the Roskill Commission which started in 1968.