Heathrow and Gatwick Will Cost More
Surprise! Surprise! The BBC is reporting that the proposals for a new runway at either Heathrow or Gatwick will cost more!
The Airports Commission says a second runway at Gatwick would cost £2bn more than the bid suggests.
Two separate plans to expand Heathrow are predicted to cost £3-4bn more.
T’was, ever thus! The first real estimate of the cost of a large project is inevitably more than the back-of-a-fag-packet estimate.
Only when the designers and project engineers work out how the project is to be realised do we get a figure for the actual cost. Usually, in construction projects, this figure can generally be relied upon.
But as I’ve believed for some time, I don’t think we’ll ever build a new runway in the South East.
Is Sir Howard Going To Recommend A Second Runway At Gatwick?
This report in the Standard speculates that Sir Howard Davies report on London airports might be recommending a second runway at Gatwick.
I think this could be a sensible solution, to providing more runway capacity in the South East of England.
I said in this post, that Gatwick’s second runway, if it is built, should be North South. Here’s what I said.
I used to fly a lot and was an avid reader of Flight International. Years ago, an airline pilot proposed building a second runway at Gatwick, by building over the M23 and putting that in a tunnel underneath. The runway would have been North-South, which is an unusual direction for the UK, but would only have been used for take-off in a southerly direction.
He had a point and it shows how if you think radically, you may come up with better solutions.
I still think that this North-South proposal should be seriously examined.
Gatwick also has good rail links to London. My only questions are, are the links as good as they can be and are doing enough to make Farringdon a proper hub with restaurants, hotels and offices? I mused on the latter here!
We need some radical thinking to link the major airports together and also to the Channel Tunnel and HS2.
The Anonymous Widower 