HS2/expanding airports?

Much business travel is not for meetings but it is technicians and engineers travelling to undertake work and consultation on site. DH spent 40 years travelling the world as a off-shore engineer ,visiting sites, inspecting equipment, supervising maritime operations. None of these could be done online or on skype.

Any transport improvements in the highly populated south east are going to be highly disruptive for a significant number of people. With the highest population density in Europe that is inevitable. At various times governments have put investment into regions, sent government departments to provincial towns and offered incentives to companies to move north to try and spread economic growth more widely, but without success.

I always thought that if house prices in London and the South East soared in comparison with prices outside this fevered area, employers would be forced out of the South East and economic growth would spread, but that has not worked either as all we have had is an influx of immigrants who have accepted housing conditions far below what we consider acceptable (gross overcrowding, living in sheds etc)

Sadly, the Heathrow dilemma again illustrates very well the all-to-frequent British shambolic, long-drawn-out approach to solving any major problem. I sympathise anybody living near a major airport or HS2 route - they will live under a cloud of indecision for years which will blight their lives, and at the end of the day most probably nothing will be done. The solution? Let Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt take over as the Prime European air travel hubs, and let little old UK slumber at the end of its own little air branch-line. That's what will happen if somebody in authority doesn't take a grip!

Its no wonder no one can make a decent decision , and so we go round in never ending circles.

Conference calls and skype may be fine if business people in the UK have already made contact with their counterparts abroad. Finding new customers in other countries requires feet on the ground.

So Heathrow loses business which is presumably bad for UK business, so the argument is that we have to become attractive to business again by expanding. Makes sense to me.

Dubai is the classic hub - all the Emirates flights go to or from Dubai - so if you want to go London - Perth by Emirates, you always change planes at Dubai.
I think that is the kind of hubbism they are flapping about bags - people making two international connections rather than connecting an international flight with an internal flight. That is the impression I get from radio discussions anyway. - other european airports are getting more popular while horrible heathrow is so overcrowded and used to capacity nobody in their right mind would choose to go there.

we don't `need` neither of these costly projects; --its just someone wanting to make big money- using our government to pave the way, who will also get subsidises too; they do not care how many lives are ruined or displaced;

everyone in high position gets extra hand out for pushing it through parliament! money spent by government is peanuts compared to those who really make money from either venture !

government for the people doesn't exist, most are there to line their own pockets, (take blair, didn't he get rich) by good or bad means. they use a smoke screen of other issues to hide behind. like our eating habits -need more healthy diet; or cancer --new issues - as in how not to get it! or the state of hospitals! to deceive us, or confuse.

with boring repetition they are thrown at us, schools; education; immigrants; yes some things get done, but its all wasted money as 6 mths later its all change again, like a game of shuttle cock.

lets have an all female government, if we can run a home and family efficiently--then as Maggie proved we can make lives better for all !!!

BTW, I don't see rail and air travel as outdated.

I'm not saying I'm in favour of HS2 or airport expansion in London. I don't know yet. I do know that none of the arguments against them have sounded convincing to me so my purpose in posting on this thread is to think about the subjects and to hear other views.

Flying to NZ from Manchester entails changing flights at Heathrow. A tedious business as they insist on repeating all the security checks. In NZ the hub is Auckland and all formalities are completed there. Alternatively, it is possible to fly to NZ with Emirates, but that involves changing at Dubai. I haven't done is that way, but have heard that it is relatively painless, unless, as happened to my sister and BiL, ones flight has to land on a remote desert runway because of fog at Dubai and one misses the onward flight by about 24 hours.

PS Not referring to the Luddism in the not so sure remark. Just to be clear.

Hmm. I'm not so sure about that. Some, certainly, but most? Not so sure. I'll tell you why. DH does a lot of work over the ether with people in London, New York and Tokyo. Every now and then he has to go down to London to meet people and solve problems with them. He always says that they achieve masses more working physically together in the time available.

There's also the fact that we are social animals. I think this matters and should be taken into account. We need to interact properly with people we work with. I'm not saying over the ether isn't a good thing, but it's not sufficient unto itself so I'm not convinced by the argument that business trips are a waste of time and money.

Just think of any of the stories of long-distance grandparents. Skyping and emailing and wotnot are not enough, are they? I know it's a different relationship – a personal one rather than a business one – but business relationships are important and you see a lot more of a person'sbody language and everything if you meet them in person. This applies to gransnetters (thus our fab meetups); why wouldn't it apply to people wanting to work together?

Not a Luddite! - I'm more interested in the world using the latest technology and not investing vast sums in out-dated technology (rail and air).

Clearly you cannot go on holiday on the net, but most business uses of travel could be done electronically over the ether.

My argument is support of projects like these is that they should give a boost to British industry and engineering, just as the blast off for ESAGaia and its Giga pixel sensor, made in Chelmsford, just behind B&Q has been (and will hopefully continue to be).

We had to fly from Glasgow to London to get a flight to New York. Then we had to change airports in New York to get an internal New York State flight. That seems hub-like to me in both cases, since we couldn't get a direct flight from Glasgow to Ithaca, London and New York City being the hubs. I didn't find anything surprising about that even though I would have preferred a direct flight. I think London is a stop-off place mid-journey for lots of people. That's what I mean by hub.

London is also a business/financial hub. We may not like that but facts is facts.

gillybob, what I'm thinking is that it sort of makes sense to start HS rail links from London to somewhere. The next biggest city seems logical. And then, I'm thinking, HS links to elsewhere follow in due course, from Birmingham as well as from London. Have to start somewhere if we start at all and the capital city seems like a reasonable place if we do start.

If we don't start at all, so be it.

bags if they are flying to or from London then the "hub" concept does not apply if I understand correctly. Hub is about connecting flights where people don't actually go landslide.

sussexpoet I've lived near Heathrow for over 60yrs I don't ever remember anyone being killed on the ground here.. planes have crashed killing passengers but as far as I know no one was ever killed on the ground.. besides the point I know but I really can't remember the incident you are discussing..

I'm with tiggypiro et al. Although I live in the southeast, I think the way our transport is focused on London is totally ridiculous - this applies to HS2 as well as the airports. If the govt teally are set on building an HS2 system, they should at least start it from the northern end of the country. I now live about 20 miles from Gatwick, so am pretty well out of range of noise, etc. but years ago I lived very near Heathrow and well remember the day when a row of houses in a nearby street was destroyed (and most of the people in them) by a plane coming in to land too low.

I don't think there is a Luddittic pattern emerging at all thatbags . I for one are not against technology, automation or indeed the continous improvement or developement of transport links. What I am against is the shocking waste of money (HS2) based on the percentage of the UK that will see any true benefit as a result. This is just yet another example of the ever present North-South divide.

I remember a friend who was flying to Australia , she lived in Belgium telling me that flights were always much more expensive from Europe it was cheaper for her to fly to Heathrow and then onwards with a long haul flight from there.. not sure why that would be but it does seem to be the case.

I don't actually know if I support or oppose the two projects mentioned. I do know that Heathrow is one of if the nor the busiest airports in the the entire world so it appears that something has to change.

In answer to your last question, the same people who oppose Heathrow expansion also oppose HS2 which, some say, is an improvement of rail services. Is there a Luddittic pattern emerging here perhaps? (not saying there is, just wondering).

London does seem to be a travel hub of the world. It's all very well saying people don't have to travel via London, but I think that they often do have to because that's where their flight is to/from. No doubt there are historical reasons why this is so, including the fact that London was a global hub long before airports were invented. Perhaps a more historically inclined person will be able to tell us if it was more or less of a global hub than, say, Liverpool or Glasgow or Bristol. I have a feeling it might have been, for multiple complex reasons, and I've a feeling it still is whether we like it or not.

I also have a feeling tha London airport expansion will happen later if not sooner. Just a feeling I have. Nothing in particular to back it up.

My son sometimes flies back from NZ via Amsterdam. It is cheaper than a direct flight to the UK. His choice. Nobody has to transit via a particular country. If you want to land at Heathrow and get then the cheapest flight to Scotland you might have to get on a coach to Luton etc etc
If you are in the US and you want to get to, say, Turkey, you have a vast range of options. This is all about getting more people to choose London as a place to go through, paying airport taxes and buying a latte or two as they go.
Have we got to compete? Does London actually have the land or the money to compete? Would the money be better spent on improving commuter services to places like Leeds?

I think it's quite reasonable of passengers not to want to change airports in the middle of a journey. Does one have to do that at other places? (I know the answer is sometimes yes at New York, but the airports aren't so far apart there i think).