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Heathwick? What an awful idea….

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Hitting the press today in the United Kingdom has been the idea of “Heathwick” (with the Telegraph breaking it first, followed by the BBC

The idea is to some simple – slap in a High Speed Rail link to operate between London Heathrow and London Gatwick Airports around the M25, running at 180mph to 15 minutes and create a “virtual hub” between the two airports.

Ministers will be examining the idea as plan to increase capacity in the short term.

However, Heathwick faces a few major issues.

  • The first major issue is about how much real extra capacity it will add. And I’m sorry, unless you boot all the Low Cost and Charter Carriers out of Gatwick, it’s a big fat ZERO extra slots, and ZERO runways
  • A 10 year gestation to build the thing. By that point the idea will be moot.
  • And if the road to getting this approved will be covered with NIMBY‘s (Not In My Back Yard) protesting – the ultimate killer of major infrastructure projects in the UK.
  • It’ll also face some opposition as the route is littered with Conservative Ministers of Parliament seats who will face pressures from their consultants about the trouble this will cause.
  • The cost will probably spiral out of control. The project – whilst budgeted at £5BILLON will overrun. This is UK infrastructure project we’re talking about here.

The sad point is this: On the day the current administration came to power, the proposal to build a 3rd Runway at Heathrow was thrown out of the door. Even Willie Walsh of IAG Fame thinks this is a bad idea.

And now we are here.

So what is the way forward? The choices are getting slimmer as the UK missed out trade because of a two runway international airport:

  1. Add capacity to Heathrow (3rd Runway)
  2. Add capacity to Gatwick (which will be impossible until 2019 due to planning deals in the area)
  3. Consider the Thames Estuary Airport (The Boris Island) Idea in the Essex/Kent Area- which in itself is a epicly major infrastructure project.

All of these require strong, decisive action. And to be honest, with all the lobbying groups around, I can’t see any of that happening….