A Third Runway at London Heathrow Essay Example

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was holding office from 2007-2010, shared this view and supported the project, in contrast to some Labour MPs (Kirkup, 2009).

The credo was: A third runway will be a strong secure for the long term competitiveness of the British economy (BBC News, 2010; London First, 2008; British Chambers of Commerce, 2009). On the other hand big disadvantages of this project are quiet obvious: First of all the immense costs. The 2200 m long runway will cost the British tax payer approximately £10 milliard, including environmental damage that will arise from the project (Economist, 2011; FAZ, 2010). According to Ryan (2006) hundreds of houses, a church and nature would have to be destroyed, since because of the already existing airport runways and logistics building would only be possible in a specific area (BBC News, 2008).

According to Crerar (2007) another important argument against the project can be seen in the air pollution which will increase massively, especially in the north and North West of London. Anna Jones from the environmental charity Greenpeace explained that noise and air pollution regulations will be easily breached because of adding a new airport the size of Gatwick to the present airport at Heathrow and this would have a bad impact to the climate. (BBC News, 2010) That’s why Greenpeace launched spectacular campaigns to generate public attention, e.g. a flashmob in terminal five during their “Airplot” campaign (Greenpeace, 2010).

After all, passenger numbers should be boosted to 82 million and could increase to 135 million per year (BBC News, 2010). Consequently the residents in the airport area would be faced with a dramatic

increase of noise. The opponents are supported by political parties like the Conservatives (Villiers, 2010), the Lib Dem (Liberal Democrats UK, 2009) and Greens (Green Party UK, 2009).

4. How the project came to an end before beginning? Right from the beginning, when the government declared Heathrow’s problem in its “2003 aviation white paper” (Economist, 2008) and finally approved the project in January 2009, massive and well organized resistances of residents and environmental activists, as well as political parties refused their support. But the main event leading to a cancellation was the general election held on the 6th May 2010.

A coalition of Conservatives and Libs replaced the Labour government, which was in power since 1997. It was a big surprise, because nobody expected that the Labour party would lose the ruling power (d´Ancona, 2010). One of the new coalition agreements was to cancel the third runway at Heathrow, which was promised by the Conservatives during the entire election campaign (Financial Times, 2010). It was one point of the new environmental policy, to reduce the carbon dioxid emissions.

An opponent of Heathrow expansion, Norman Baker, a Lib Dem MP, argued that the move was “the first fruit of the agreement” for London´s citizens (Sherwood, 2010). In my point of view the campaigns of Greenpeace contributed to the decision but the final decision was made in the political arena. Not long after that announcement, the operating company BAA informed the media, that they had to stop the expansion plans for Heathrow as well as for Gatwick airport (Guardian, 2010).

5. Consequences arising from the suspension of the project? Especially for the leading

UK-airlines, like British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and British Midland, which are mainly operating from the airport in the British metropolis, the cancellation was a hard setback (FAZ, 2010). Even business people raised concerns about the restricted transport capacities and argued that the decision to cancel the project would influence London´s competitiveness. Big businesses in London, which is represented by London First, urged the government should point out a “plan B”. Furthermore the high speed rail route alternative can´t replace international air links (Sherwood, 2010).

Even the Labour Party ended up making a political U-turn in 2011 and withdrew its support for a third runway at Heathrow (Pickard & Jacobs, 2011). At the Airport Operators Association conference on November 1, 201, the Labour Party transport spokesman Maria Eagle said: “The answer for the south-east is not going to be to fall back on the proposed third runway at Heathrow. The local environmental impact means that this is off the agenda” (Reuters, 2011). Consequently the passengers will have to deal with the crowded airport in the long run.

6. Conclusion and current situation According to BBC News (2010), the airport operator BAA said that they will work with the new cabinet so that international trading connections on which the UK’s competitiveness depends are not in danger. A discussed alternative since today is to use free capacities of the Birmingham airport to relieve pressure on London Airports. But this solution has one big disadvantage: Transportation time. The infrastructure is not on the same level as in London and a lot of investments would have to be made (Birmingham Airport, 2010; BBC News, 2008). From an economic

point of view it would have been essential to enlarge Heathrow’s flight capacities.

Just thinking of the snow debacle in December 2010, when Heathrow shut one of its two runways for three days and thousands of passengers were left stranded, shows the tremendous negative effect this incident had on the airport’s image (Parker & Jacobs, 2011). But do the investments really outweigh the environmental costs? From my personal perspective I don´t think so. The capacity problem of Britain’s biggest Airport is not solved. I do feel that the UK just took some time to postpone some major decisions to be made. From my point of view the UK government should discuss sustainable ways of travelling, because this is the real problem.

The entire world has to start taking responsibility for the environment, which we clearly see from the effects that environmental disasters have on all of us. Finally a real alternative can only be found during a public, analytical and objective discussion with all political parties, airport operators, residents and environmental organizations.