PalenQ

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25402007#"

The various options at Heathrow and Gatwick for new runways which many say are desperately needed and some say are a waste of money...

alanRow

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/avia...t-runways.html

Michael O'Leary's idea - which makes more sense than anything from Boris

PatrickLondon

>>Ryanair has suggested that each of these airports should be given permission to build an additional runway whenever they chose to, subject only to normal planning consents. After all, the Government doesn’t determine where new hotels or new tourism facilities are developed. Why should it make the same decisions on runways? <<

"Normal planning consents" <i>are</i> government decisions, albeit local rather than central government: but central government can call in major decisions, or they are referred to them on appeal. And airport runways are just the kind of major national decision that isn't entirely market-led, because they impact on many thousands of people, and depend on government to provide the supporting infrastructure. And it isn't markets that would decide where the runways would go, unless you're prepared to see built-in redundancy in the system, and private financing taking the strain of those projects that fail to find a market.

Of course, if Ryanair wants to get into rehousing the people who are displaced by new runways, compensating those whose properties lose value, sound-proofing homes and schools, building new access roads and railways - and do all that without public finance or at least a public guarantee to support private financing, and accept the prospect of such a project not actually making any money because some competitor's attracted more of the market...... well, I wouldn't hold my breath.

PS: this report isn't an exercise in actually making any recommendations, it's a way to kick all this into the long grass until after the next election, in order to save Bumface's reputation. By the way, have you noticed the story about his uncanny resemblance to Catherine the Great:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...the-Great.html

flanneruk

" the Government doesn’t determine where new hotels or new tourism facilities are developed."

Cobblers. Typical of this buffoon's inability to understand anything more complex than how to line his own pocket

In the Irish Republic, of course, true - which is why the country's been turned into a dump under governments listening to loudmouth flyboys like O'Leary.

Mercifully, we don't live there: millions of us have the great fortune to have chosen ancestors with the wisdom to have moved to a civilised country. Where we allow "tourist facilities" to be built only with the consent of the those who'll have to live with them.

I doubt O'Leary lives anywhere that's been destroyed by the wall to wall bungalows making up most modern landscape in the Republic of Gombeenmen. British voters certainly won't elect anyone happy to Irishise our cities and countryside.

Which is why these proposals are unlikely ever to materialise.

alanRow

So how does anything get done in the UK if the locals have enough power to say "no".

In reality it's weak governments who are unwilling to make any decision that could cost them votes.

As a slight aside - saw one suggestion today saying that we should build Boris Island - then put all the people moaning about Heathrow expansion on it. They'd get brand new modern homes, fresh air, no aircraft AND sea views!!

PalenQ

So how does anything get done in the UK if the locals have enough power to say "no".

In reality it's weak governments who are unwilling to make any decision that could cost them votes.>

uh uh - like the true high-speed rail line that should sliced thru the Cotswold Hills (NOYL!) then birmingham-Manchester-glasgow-Edinburgh - never will get done in the U K due to NIMBYism - France did it years ago and by all accounts the high-speed rail network (meaning all new rights of way) is an economic and environmental success.