Transport Infrastructure
Business of the House
12:04 pm
Ian Taylor (Esher and Walton, Conservative)
Heathrow is a fixture and is important for the south-east economy as well as that of the rest of the country. Therefore, it needs to be efficient, and on that basis I welcome the Secretary of State's decision. The issue is an emotional one, but my constituents will benefit, particularly if stacking—one of the consequences of lack of capacity at Heathrow—is reduced. Secondly, I welcome his efforts to constrain the environmental effects, because that will pull through new technologies—modern aircraft such as the A380 have a much smaller noise footprint over a given area. But will he comment on the alternatives offered by rail? The problem is that rail transport per kilometre and per passenger gives off more CO2 than an equivalent use of aircraft. If energy is consumed on the basis of what we produce currently from gas and coal, the CO2 emitted is far greater. At least the French have nuclear energy, which reduces the impact of their rail travel.
Annotations
Malcolm McKenzie
Posted on 16 Jan 2009 12:38 pm (Report this annotation)
I am absolutely amazed that Mr Taylor can support this. It's not an emotional subject, it is a common sense one. They increased capacity (stacking) on the M25 which I use frequently between the M3 and M4 junction and within 2 years it is back to gridlock at most times in the day. As long as you continue to give the public choices about road or rail they will use road.
Can you even imagine what an increase to the infrastructure will make to this and surrounding Motorways. I'm not an environmentalist but I do have a bit of sympathy when dopey decisions are made like this because this has shot a hole in any polution targets even those ones by the EC. No doubt we can expect fines well before the plane makers have improved their emissions. After all they've got what they want now.
I favour increasing capacity but am dismayed about the approach to it. Why not close Heathrow, build a proper airport on the estuary with no CPO's to bother about and use the money gained from selling Heathrow to build it. Link the new airport with rail only leading anywhere you like, denying any other option, add runways at will and then we have solved all the problems for a fraction of the cost of a third runway.
That's without even thinking outside the box. The only person making any sense at the moment is Boris.
Let's hope a flock of birds don't run into one of the aircraft that flies over the centre of London every 45 seconds. That would test the pilot's skill landing on a bendy river Thames.
Malcolm McKenzie.
Richard Tebboth
Posted on 16 Jan 2009 4:37 pm (Report this annotation)
I entirely agree with Malcolm.
I understand that we need a new Thames barrier in a similar timescale as that seen for the Heathrow expansion; the barrier could be combined with the airport and also produce electricity.
Mr Taylor seems to be at variance with Tory Party policy on this matter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7641094.stm
"The Tories say they would scrap plans for a third runway at Heathrow and build a high-speed rail line instead.
"They are proposing to create a new line linking London St Pancras, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds - saying it would cut Heathrow flights by 66,000 a year.
"Transport spokeswoman Theresa Villiers said it had been a hard decision but the party would "not run" from it.
"Ms Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, told the party's conference in Birmingham: "This is one of the hardest decisions we have faced as a party and we will not run away from it.
"That's why I can announce this morning that a Conservative government would say no to a third runway at Heathrow."