Conservative MPs want Heathrow runway rethink
20.01.12
A group of over thirty Conservative MPs have called on the government to rethink its decision to rule out a third runway at Heathrow Airport. The Free Enterprise Group says the UK is falling behind other European cities and a new runway is needed at Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted in the next decade. It suggests compensating homeowners near Heathrow with up to £40,000 to get the expansion agreed.
A government consultation on aviation, including a possible new airport in the Thames Estuary, will begin in March. The MPs say they are not opposed to a new airport, but they argue it will take decades to complete and in the meantime, the UK could be losing £1.2bn a year because of inadequate connections to emerging economies like China and Latin America.
They point out, for example, that Paris and Frankfurt have 1000 more annual flights to the three largest cities in China than Heathrow. The report also says Heathrow served 227 destinations worldwide in 1990, but that has shrunk to 180, and is forecast to drop to 147.
Passenger demand for London's airports is forecast to increase from 140 million a year in 2010 to 400 million passengers a year by 2050, according to a previous report by the Greater London Authority. The Conservative MPs say airport expansion is the only viable option to tackle this in the short term and at least one new runway must be built at either Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted in the next 10 years. Compensation from the airport operator could be one way of easing the pain, it adds.
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