The addition of a 2nd Runway at Stansted Airport and 3rd Runway at Heathrow International Airport.
My argument was for the addition of a 3rd runway at Heathrow and 2nd runway at Stansted Airports. The plans for the expansion were announced by the Labour Government and have been supported by FirstGroup which would be running in competition with Stansted for the intercity transport links. Also Richard Branson, head of Virgin Atlantic has supported the plans due to the number of flights that the airline has going in and out of Heathrow. Groups, such as the Conservative Party, have been pressuring for the plans to be scrapped and a high speed rail link to be added instead.
Building a new rail link would cost £20 billion when it would only take 28 minutes off the train journey between London and Leeds. A 3rd runway at Heathrow and 2nd runway at Stansted would only cost half that. The proposed plans would reduce the amount of waiting time for flights flying into Heathrow; this is due to the amount of traffic that is landing. At the moment the average landing waiting time at Heathrow is 20 minutes, when compared to other international airports that are in nearby countries, such as Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt their waiting times are only 15 minutes. The waiting time at Heathrow has increased by 25% since 2003.
In 2007 3.7 million passengers went on flights over 7 hours log and it’s expected to rise by a third to 4.9 million for 2008. With Heathrow airport being an world hub airport it has only 2 runways where as other European airports have more, Amsterdam has 4, Paris has 3 and Frankfurt has 3 with a 4th in construction which is expected to be completed in 2011. Due to the decrease in waiting time for landing at Heathrow and the improvement in facilities at Stansted would meet the environmental targets as a Car Charging Scheme where cars are charged for the amount of fuel that they use.
A new trend is that holiday makers who are who are going on long haul holidays such as New Zealand and Australia are now staying in those countries for a longer period of time in attempts to off-set the carbon foot print for their flights.
One of my points was that people are not using Heathrow for their international flights. Instead they are flying to airports such as Amsterdam, Paris or Frankfurt to then fly from those airports to then fly to their final destination. The environmental impact and loss to UK based companies such as British Airways would be damaging. On environmental side this would result in doubling the number of flights that are taking off, which is well known to be the most damaging part of flying, it would be damaging to companies like BA because there would be less of those flights seats being bought, resulting in a loss of money.
I believe that it is vital for the addition of the 3rd runway at Heathrow because people currently are not using the Heathrow because they know that they are going to spend most of their time at the airport on the ground, either waiting for their flight to arrive or to take off.
Summary of the Key Debate points.
There were a number of points that were raised during the debate that highlighted the advantages and disadvantages of various industries in relation to economic growth and environmental damage.
A large point that was raised on both sides of the argument was the dredging of Falmouth Harbour to allow large cruise ships access to Falmouth Harbour, the arguments were the disruption of marine wildlife against the economic growth of the town.
Another point that was raised was the collapse of the stock markets, the current Credit Crunch as a result of this, the fact that banks are now being nationalised and that jobs are being lost due to the fact that businesses are closing. Linking with one of the other points about a 300 berth marina being built would create more jobs locally. The 300 berth marina that is re-developing an unused area of waterfront has already been pre-sold before construction has been begun.
Another two environmental points that were raise where the removal of algae from rivers, the sea and from marinas, this is damaging the environment due to its nature as an oxygenator and as it helps keep a areas biodiversity. A following point is that countries are cutting down large areas of rainforest in order to grow palm oil trees to improve their countries economics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/03/climate-change-emissions-recession-heathrow
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/05/firstgroup-transport
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/06/transport-heathrow-runway-firstgroup
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/07/britishairways-theairlineindustry2
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