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.’