Larger airports (From Oxford Mail)

It will be great if Oxford Airport is expanded. The CPRE* would be kept occupied for years.

*Capaign to Protect Retirement Expectations/Rural England (Delete as applicable).

You wouldn't need more capacity if we stopped short-haul flights under 500 miles. Once HS2 and the link to HS1 is built we should used high-speed rail to feed into LHR from Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Scotland etc, and north-western Europe. HS trains can and do code-share with airlines to offer connecting journeys on the continent.

Having more long-haul flights converted to A380s, as airports around the world are upgraded, will also accommodate growth

We could stick a new airport in Abingdon and that would help to shut up Dr Evan Harris.

King Joke wrote:
You wouldn't need more capacity if we stopped short-haul flights under 500 miles. Once HS2 and the link to HS1 is built we should used high-speed rail to feed into LHR from Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Scotland etc, and north-western Europe. HS trains can and do code-share with airlines to offer connecting journeys on the continent. Having more long-haul flights converted to A380s, as airports around the world are upgraded, will also accommodate growth

Your name is highly appropriate because HS2 really is a 'king joke! £35,000,000,000 of public money to build a train line which will be massively overpriced and underused.

We already have a way for motorists to get to the north much more quickly than the M6 - the M6 Toll Road. And it is virtually empty all the time, because motorists aren't prepared to pay an extra £6 A VEHICLE to save themselves 20 minutes on a 2 hour journey.

Yet the lunatics behind HS2 seem to think that people will be happy to pay tens of pounds more PER TICKET to get to Birmigham 20 minutes quicker than they can at present on the Chiltern Railway line.

This is a political white elephant, created with no real belief that it will actually transfer passengers from other modes of transport - it is simply political posturing so the likes of Nick Clegg can pretend to some voters that he is actually doing something.

Oh dear oh dear Severian. Leaving aside the fact you are mixing up the Chiltern and West Coast Main Lines, HS2 is emphatically NOT being built just to save twenty minutes between London and Birmingham.

It will provide extra capacity between London and Birmingham, and subsuequently Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and the Central Belt of Scotland. The railway is growing at 6% and will be full up by the 2020s. Destinations like Newcastle and Scotland will also see significant time savings.

It will provide extra connectivity between these northern destinations, the Channel Tunnel and the Continent. It will provide extra connectivity between these desinations and Heathrow, hopefully obviating wasteful short-haul flights. With a big interchange at Old Oak Common, destinations in the West of England and South Wales will also see better connectivity with the Channel Tunnel and faster connections to the northern destinations mentioned above.

HS2 is about connectivity and capacity as much as it is time-savings.

By the LibDems mentioning North Oxfordshire, are they referring to Upper Heyford or MOD Bicester?

If so, great build another airport not too far from Oxford Airport.

NIMBYs not expanding Heathrow/Gatwick - if all they require is one final runway to service the`existing terminals surely that must be better than building a brand new airport somewhere else. Not as if there are stashes of cash waiting to be spent.

First Group justified their bid for West Coast line on the basis that there is substantial unused capacity, so surely that blows HS2 out, since that supposedly reduces journeys by insignificant times, plus if FG more than delivers this extra route becomes less viable. Else their bid numbers are as accurate as HS2's.

First Group plan to fill the unused capacity by the end of the franchise, in 2027. From then the only option on the WCML is to add one more car to the Pendolinos which will give us another 9%, then that's it.

At any rate the unused capacity is off-peak. We know that peak trains are pretty busy even in First Class, and in Standard at any rate, Sunday trains as busy as weekday peak ones.

At some point we are going to have to bite the bullet and build more capacity. THere are alternatives to HS2 but they will all be expensive and disruptive, probably more disruptive than HS2. They might be better, they might not, but while HS2 has cross-party support it is the one we all need to back.

THe alternatives, of increased short-haul air and a new motorway-building programme are pretty unpalatable.

Yep, can't wait for even more parts of Great Britain to be consumed by even more foul pollution from jet and turbo-jet aircraft, together with associated noise pollution and the creation of more jobs demanding yet more housing, shops, roads and sewer systems. On the other hand, here in Oxfordshire already have muassive infrastructure capable of providing a najor new airport - It's called Heyford Park, the former RAF and USAF airbase, and its already got underground nuclear fall-out protection!

ERR, But people want to fly to London so the only answer is to expand the worlds busiest international airport to cope with demand, and boost the economy. When I pop over to Bangkok I don't want to fly into Udon Thani, no more than a visitor to London wants to fly into North Oxfordshire.

Reg, two points:

1. With short-haul flights transferred to rail and long-haul flights upgraded to A380 operation, there would be plenty of capacity to link us to emerging markets.

2. With the correct infrastructure North Oxon would be under 30 mins to Central London - not that I support a Heyford Airport, but we're not that far away.

3. As Confuscius say, man who walk into airport door sideways is probably going to Bangkok...

The numberof flights using Heathrow that would be removed by HS2 is tiny. Not even the Government thinks this is a reason for it. We now know that the WCML is the most under used intercity route in the country, so there is plenty of capcity for many, many years.

The future is broadband and not long distance train journeys or even flying. The £35 billion the govt is about to waste could be put to so many better uses.

Ordinarybloke wrote:
The numberof flights using Heathrow that would be removed by HS2 is tiny. Not even the Government thinks this is a reason for it. We now know that the WCML is the most under used intercity route in the country, so there is plenty of capcity for many, many years. The future is broadband and not long distance train journeys or even flying. The £35 billion the govt is about to waste could be put to so many better uses.

How many flights from Heathrow are under 500 miles? Many destinations in England, Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands, NOrthern France and Western German will be easily reached when HS2 and the link to HS1 is built. The number of flights to these destinations is not tiny by any means.

I'm amused to learn the WCML is under-used. Wait for a train at Nuneaton and you will see 9+ car trains flying through every few minutes. Even if they are only 3/4 full now, they certainly will not be by the mid-2020s. THe level of inter-city traffic on the line suppresses demand for freight and local/regional passenger traffic as well.

Finally if broadband were reducing demand to travel we'd be grassing over the M1. There are many journeys the purpose for which cannot be undertaken by Skype - leisure travel included.

Ordinarybloke wrote:
The numberof flights using Heathrow that would be removed by HS2 is tiny. Not even the Government thinks this is a reason for it. We now know that the WCML is the most under used intercity route in the country, so there is plenty of capcity for many, many years.

The future is broadband and not long distance train journeys or even flying. The £35 billion the govt is about to waste could be put to so many better uses.

Yep and I have just looked at my local A-GO-GO in Phuket on my broadband connection, and guess what, I will be flying there because your Broadband is not the future it is just a tool, more airport capacity IS the future, especially now with China and India becoming so wealthy that their people want to visit England and spend their money, not just look at it over a broadband connection on a screen. GEDDIT!

ger elttil OX2 0EJ wrote:

Ordinarybloke wrote: The numberof flights using Heathrow that would be removed by HS2 is tiny. Not even the Government thinks this is a reason for it. We now know that the WCML is the most under used intercity route in the country, so there is plenty of capcity for many, many years. The future is broadband and not long distance train journeys or even flying. The £35 billion the govt is about to waste could be put to so many better uses.

Yep and I have just looked at my local A-GO-GO in Phuket on my broadband connection, and guess what, I will be flying there because your Broadband is not the future it is just a tool, more airport capacity IS the future, especially now with China and India becoming so wealthy that their people want to visit England and spend their money, not just look at it over a broadband connection on a screen. GEDDIT!

... which is why we need to clear the short-haul stuff out of Heathrow, to accommodate trunk routes to growing markets.