WEB EXCLUSIVE: Heathrow needs a third runway – Debate report

The statistics were flying like circling jumbos at the Intelligence Squared debate on Heathrow’s proposed expansion. The News 24 anchorman Nik Gowing introduced a panel of experts led by Tom Kelly, once spin doctor to Tony Blair and now BAA’s head of communications. Heathrow’s problems boil down to capacity, he said. Already it works at 100 percent while its main rivals – Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt – operate at 75 percent. This makes them less susceptible to weather disruption and open to new growth. Cramped and crowded Heathrow has just lost the new Air India headquarters to Brussels. And even now, Kelly warned, Dubai is building a spanking new terminal with the futuristic title Dubai World Central. Its precise goal, is ‘to take away the global east-west traffic from Heathrow.’
 
Opposing the motion Mark Lynas, a Guardian journalist and green author, reminded us that carbon emissions are rising so fast that the rate of increase itself is accelerating. By mid-century aviation would account for 70 percent of all carbon emission as other polluters move to clean fuels. Aviation couldn’t follow suit because no one was developing an airbus that runs on chip fat. He admitted that ‘writers like me are losing the battle very badly indeed,’ and said the solution was ‘demand management.’ New high-speed rail-links between major UK cities would cut tens of thousands of flights per year. Ultimately this would benefit those who are at risk of dying from starvation and thirst as the planet overheats.
 
Clive Soley, a Labour peer and longstanding resident of west London, furthered the business case by reminding us that Heathrow employs a workforce of 70,000. In the booming Thames Valley another 100,000 jobs are dependent on the airport. Heathrow had to maintain its position as ‘a hub airport, like the hub railway stations that knitted great cities together during the industrial revolution.’ Mark Lynas’s argument about replacing rail-links would help passengers, Soley admitted, but would harm businesses that send air-freight within the UK. He rejected the suggestion that Heathrow should close altogether and give west London some peace and quiet. ‘It will be the peace of the graveyard.’
 
Next up Sir Peter Hall, not the impresario but the strategic planner and special adviser to the team that masterminded the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. In a brisk, jolly speech, supported by illustrations, he presented a persuasive 25-year strategy. A new airport should be built in the Thames estuary complete with high-speed connections to the continent. To cater for expansion in the meantime, new rail links should be established marrying up Heathrow with the Eurostar. His big idea, ‘integration not aviation’, seemed perfectly attainable with a bit of forward planning. He showed a photo of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport where the arrivals lounge is bang next to the train terminus. How devilishly clever that looked to us Brits. And at Frankfurt, he explained, air passengers can land and take a train straight to Stuttgart. The link isn’t owned by a rail company, it’s managed by Lufthansa. Common sense.
 
Colin Stanbridge, a broadcasting executive, said he was regularly embarrassed on foreign business trips by the question, ‘When are you going to do something about Heathrow?’ He admitted that Sir Peter’s arguments were ‘very strong’ and that ‘Boris International’ was an attractive idea but he predicted endless delays inspired by regulators, local residents and bird-spotters. ‘Never underestimate the might of the RSPB.’
 
Vince Cable, MP for Twickenham, tackled the proposers’ arguments head on. Recent financial turmoil had overturned all commercial assumptions. ‘Plans based on business-as-usual growth are off the wall.’ He rubbished Clive Soley’s suggestion that Heathrow supports thousands of local jobs. Most jobs at Heathrow are taken by immigrants, he said. A third runway would make no commercial sense once new EU taxes have forced air travel to reflect the full environmental cost of flying. In any case both opposition parties are against the runway, ‘so if the government changes, it won’t happen.’ That seemed to be that but in the floor debate Clive Soley shrewdly suggested that the Tories might re-think their stance once in power. He in turn was attacked by a well-dressed woman who deplored his suggestion that Heathrow would become a hub airport. ‘I don’t want London to turn into the Crewe of western Europe.’ Huge laughter and applause.
 
If policy follows opinion in the room, the runway is doomed. 
 
Votes 
 
Before: 176 in favour, 302 against, 164 undecided
After: 247 in favour, 396 against, 12 undecided