Passengers could take a high speed train from Heathrow direct to the continent, under plans unveiled by a firm of engineers.

Arup, the engineering company responsible for building the high speed rail line from St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel, believes the track could be extended through London to the capital's main airport.

The scheme, which was put forward to Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, is one of a number of proposals currently under consideration.

Earlier this year the Telegraph disclosed that Network Rail has drawn up its own proposals for a series of high speed track, running parallel to the main rail arteries.

The Arup blueprint, which would be a privately-financed scheme, would cost £4.5 billion to complete. It estimates that this could be completed by 2019.

"Extending High Speed Rail in Britain is an inevitability - a matter of when not if," said Mark Bostock, a director of Arup.

"The rising cost of flying, and growing awareness of its environmental impact, has seen a surge in demand for our existing High-Speed Rail services, and this trend is set to continue."

The Department for Transport said that it expected that a detailed study of the options for high speed rail should be completed by next July.

Read the full article in The Telegraph.


Network Rail, the 2M group and now Arup have all come up with plans to develop high speed rail in the UK, a concept which the government's transport advisor and former head of BA, Sir Rod Eddington, rejected. Prior to delivering his report, Eddington had said he was in favour of high speed rail.

While Ruth Kelly is to announce the Heathrow expansion decision later this year, her department, the DfT, expects to complete a detailed study of high speed rail options next July.

Under these circumstances, giving the green light to Heathrow expansion makes no sense whatsoever. Are they incapable of joined-up thinking?

The Co-operative Travel is opposing a third runway at Heathrow as part of a wide-ranging sustainable tourism strategy.

Launching the strategy, managing director Mike Greenacre criticised the development of new runways, particularly Heathrow's, as unnecessary and called for technology developments to cut carbon emissions.

The business, which operates more than 400 high-street agencies, is the first major travel retailer to reject plans for Heathrow's expansion. As part of an analysis on projected airline growth with the Campaign for Better Transport, it found new runways planned at airports conflict with UK targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2050.

Read the full article in Travel Weekly.


The Co-operative Travel, formerly the Co-op Travel Shop, won't be the last major travel retailer to oppose Heathrow expansion..

The facts are plain. Airport expansion does not sit comfortably with a 60% cut in carbon dioxide emissions.

The economic case for expanding Heathrow is flawed because the argument for building a third runway at Britain's largest airport relies on optimistic assumptions including a low oil price and escalating passenger demand for flights, a new report argues.

The government consultation on a third runway ignores the potential impact of new railway lines on passenger demand, presumes that air fares will continue to fall and is based on questionable forecasts that oil will cost $53 a barrel in 2030 - less than half the current price - said the Stockholm Environment Institute.

The SEI, which has worked for the British government and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the case for a third runway should be re-examined by "disinterested researchers" who are not for or against. "Considering the size of the project and the irreversibility of its consequences, a full and accurate accounting of impacts is essential before any decision-making process can go forward," said the report by SEI's US centre.

The Heathrow consultation has been attacked as biased by local residents, environmentalists and opposition politicians, who have also raised concerns about the close cooperation between the government and BAA, Heathrow's owner, during the process.

Read the full article in The Guardian.


BAA argues that the report is "not a serious or impartial piece of academic research" because it was commissioned by Friends of the Earth. This from the company which wrote the government's case for Heathrow's expansion. BAA cannot lecture anybody on impartiality.

It also conveniently ignores the fact that the SEI has worked for the government. The reality is that BAA doesn't like the report purely because it goes against BAA's interests.

The report says that the case for a third runway should be re-examined by "disinterested researchers" who are not for or against. We agree. That would preclude BAA and the DfT from being involved, since both are strongly in favour.

We also think that the work of a previous panel of disinterested researchers should be taken into account - the ANASE study. It is the most up to date research available on the effects of aircraft noise, yet the government has seen fit to reject it because it would blow any case for a third runway right out of the sky.

Hazel Blears, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, has called in BAA's planning application for a second runway at Stansted.

Her office said a public inquiry would be held "in due course" with a final decision being taken by ministers.

The second runway has involved nearly 40 separate planning applications.


BAA applied for an increase in passenger numbers at Stansted. This was refused by the local council and went under appeal. The result has not yet been announced. Indeed, in the past two weeks the government announced that ministers "consider they are not yet in a position to determine the appeal".

Now the government has called in the application for a second runway - taking the decision away from the local authority. But if the increase in passenger numbers appeal were to be rejected, there would be no need for the second application to go ahead.

Meanwhile the Planning Bill continues to work its way through parliament.

You know where this is going, don't you?

It's not just over Heathrow that BAA dictates government policy.

BAA, the operator of Heathrow, used the low emissions figures of a non-existent green jumbo to help clinch the environmental case for a third runway.

The twin-engine 450-seat “virtual” jet was invented for the environmental modelling required in the government consultation after BAA realised it would otherwise exceed the limit for noise and pollution.

According to BAA submissions, the green jumbo will account for more flights out of Heathrow by 2030 than four-engined giants such as the double-decker A380, or the new generation of Boeing 747s. It promises to be the world’s quietest and cleanest jumbo.

There is just one snag: Airbus and Boeing, the world’s biggest aircraft makers, have no intention of building it.

BAA’s “virtual” plane was quietly inserted into the evidence to reduce the number of long-haul four-engine aircraft. The research was used by Ruth Kelly, the transport secretary, to demonstrate how Heathrow could be expanded without causing more noise or pollution.

Read the full article in The Sunday Times.


The lies, damn lies and inaccurate statistics have been bad enough. Now we know that BAA and the DfT have been playing their own little game of Fantasy Flightpath.

If it weren't so despicable it would be laughable. "Don't worry, west London. You have nothing to fear from an end to runway alternation and a new third runway, because all the ghost flights with no passengers on board will be flown by planes which won't have been built."

In 2006 John Reid, then Home Secretary, was honest enough to admit that his department wasn't fit for purpose and had inadequate leadership.

Ruth Kelly remains silent.

Plans to expand airports in southeast England are in disarray after ministers unexpectedly put off a decision to allow an increase in passengers at Stansted in Essex.

A fortnight ago ministers were set to give the green light for Stansted to grow from 25m to 35m passengers a year. No statement was made, however, perplexing BAA, Stansted’s owner, as well as the groups that oppose the plan.

Last week the mystery was solved when officials wrote to those involved in the planning inquiry into the scheme, saying the relevant secretaries of state “consider they are not yet in a position to determine the appeal”. They also said ministers were “presently” of the view that the inquiry should not be reopened.

The officials said the government wanted to look into conditions adopted in the public inquiry on noise around the airport, saying that what had been put forward by BAA and the local council might be in conflict with existing noise objectives for the airport.

A decision on expansion is now not likely until September at the earliest.

Read the full article in The Sunday Times.


Less than two weeks ago we believed that the government would press ahead with Stansted expansion. Now it has deferred those plans and has decided not to go ahead with a public enquiry at this time.

There are a number of reasons why this could be, but whatever the truth is, the government is buying itself more time. This shows that it is no longer confident in the arguments it has previously put forward for both Heathrow and Stansted expansion - arguments which have been built on flawed and contrived data supplied by BAA.

The good news coming out of this mess is that those against expansion are winning the argument and our campaign against Heathrow expansion can be successful.

But expect more frantic manipulation and massaging of figures by the DfT and BAA between now and September.

Train passengers could travel from Yorkshire to Paris in three hours with a plan for a new £30 billion high-speed rail line to be announced next week by councils opposed to Heathrow airport expansion.

Running beside the M1, the route would make it easier for people in Scotland and northern England to get to Heathrow, lowering demand for internal connecting flights and reducing the need for airport expansion.

European links via the Channel Tunnel would mean travellers could get from Sheffield to Paris in three hours, Manchester to Amsterdam in four hours and Leeds to Frankfurt in five and a half hours.

The plan, which could be completed by 2030, is being unveiled on Monday by the 2M Group - an all-party alliance of local authorities unhappy about development plans at Heathrow.

It consists of 24 local authorities in the Heathrow area representing four million people, who are concerned about the environmental impact of airport expansion.

The group says its plan differs from other high-speed line proposals in that it aims to connect more UK cities and ensures Heathrow is fully joined to the new network.

Read the full article in The Telegraph.


It's not rocket science, is it?

Here's a snippet from Labour's 2005 manifesto. "We are now taking charge of setting the strategy for rail to further raise the standard of service and reliability. We will examine options for increasing capacity, including a new generation of high-speed trains on intercity routes".

So what did they do? They put Sir Rod Eddington, former chief executive of BA, in charge of the study into the long term needs of Britain's transport system. And what did he say? No.

Only those associated with BA, BAA and the DfT are capable of coming up with that kind of short-sightedness. Thankfully the 2M group is not beholden to the aviation lobby.

Bmi, Britain's third largest airline, will fly near-empty "ghost flights" in order to keep valuable take-off and landing slots at Heathrow.

The company admitted it would continue flights, despite an expected slump in passenger numbers, in order to avoid losing the multimillion-pound slots.

Government "use-it-or-lose-it" rules mean airlines must use 80 per cent of their scheduled slots, or forfeit them.

The rise in fuel prices and an expected slump in passengers after the summer break will force many airlines to cancel flights. However, bmi said it will go to extreme lengths to ensure it does not lose any of its coveted slots.

Tim Bye, deputy chief executive of bmi, said the airline would prefer to cancel uneconomic flights, especially midday flights from London to Scotland and northern England, but were forced to fly the routes eight of ten times to avoid losing the slots.

Read the full article in The Telegraph.


BAA, BA and the government continue to hold the line that Heathrow is "99% full" and that expansion is vital. Yet the airline with the second largest number of slots at Heathrow says that it will fly ghost flights to retain its slots, i.e. it will keep capacity up even though it doesn't have the passengers!

There is no question that this mess is the government's responsibility. If it didn't meekly capitulate to the aviation lobby, if it didn't impose artificial restrictions on carriers, if it had some guts and represented the people rather than BA and BAA, it could find a straightforward way out of this mess.

But that would require Ruth Kelly to show some imagination, throw out BAA and BA's arguments, stop all Heathrow expansion and look at the whole problem in a different way.

We'll probably see bmi's ghost flight slots being utilised by pigs before that happens.