At a major strategic rail conference held today, BAA encouraged the rail industry to work with the aviation sector to exploit a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a world-leading air and rail transport hub at Heathrow, to be underpinned by two complementary competitive assets: a third runway built within strict environmental limits and a high-speed rail network that will connect the UK's hub airport with every major centre of population across the country."
BAA's director of planning and surface access, Stuart Condie, highlighted BAA's historic commitment to rail developments (this dates back to 1978 and the first Gatwick link, to Heathrow Express, Heathrow Connect, Crossrail, Airtrack, Gatwick station refurbishments and support for the new Glasgow Airport Rail Link) and encouraged the rail industry to think "more ambitiously than ever before about integrating strategic rail networks with the UK's most important international transport hub at Heathrow."
At the conference, Stuart Condie said: "Our vision is simple: it is one where, in the next decade, a three-runway Heathrow Airport strengthens the UK's connections with global markets, particularly those in China and India, and spreads the obvious and significant economic benefits across the UK in the following decade, using a state-of-the-art high-speed rail network. It is an ambitious plan, but it is achievable and sustainable and the work to bring each strand together hopefully starts today."
There are several international examples where airport capacity is built to complement high-speed rail, such as Paris and Frankfurt. It is no coincidence that these airports represent a real and growing threat to Heathrow's competitive position, which in turn will affect the UK's ability to compete. Both have developed high speed rail links and have more runways than Heathrow.
Stuart Condie also encouraged delegates (drawn from Government, rail organisations and political parties) to reject the idea that Britain must choose between one or the other - saying "choosing rail capacity over airport expansion or air over rail for that matter is a false and dangerous choice that will leave the UK at a competitive disadvantage at precisely the wrong time. It is widely accepted that investment in strategic infrastructure projects is a fundamental element of the country's long-term economic recovery package and to force choices where the answer is clearly both [runway three and high-speed rail] is at best short-sighted."
The succesful conference generated some lively debate on the subject of High Speed Rail at Heathrow, with the meeting chairman, Tony Travers of the London School of Economics calling Heathrow 'a national treasure'. Other speakers included representatives from Arup, Atkins, the Royal Bank of Canada, Greengauge 21 and Imperial College London, whose Robert Cochrane summed up the mood of many, identifying that proposals for high-speed rail seemed good but that much more work needed to be done, particularly in the area of demand forecasting.
Notes to editors
- Frankfurt airport has three runways (with a fourth under construction), Paris has four and Amsterdam has five. France, long-time leaders in European high-speed rail, has a hub airport at Paris with twice as many runways as Heathrow. Spain, which has just opened a new high-speed rail line between Barcelona and Madrid, has also doubled the number of runways at Madrid airport from two to four.
- If all UK domestic passengers at Heathrow could switch to rail today then the 10% of capacity theoretically freed up would be filled by other demand not currently being met. The airport would be full again before 2020 when a third runway is due to be completed and long before a high speed network could actually be built.
- If every passenger south of Leeds/Bradford switches to rail, then Heathrow would still be operating at over 97% of capacity and remains, to all intents and purposes, full. The total number of such flights is only 13,356 or less than 3% of Heathrow's total flights.
- 46 destinations have been lost at Heathrow between 1990 and 2008 - including domestic destinations Inverness, Newquay, Plymouth, Birmingham, East Midlands, Prestwick, Guernsey and Isle of Man. The total number of destinations has fallen by 12% since 1990. This is particularly badly felt in the UK regions, which require good transport links for investment, which is why many regional development agencies support the development of a third runway at Heathrow.
