- Environmental Responsibility
- Air Quality
- Noise
- Climate Change
- Improving Public Transport
- High Speed Rail
High Speed Rail
Future Heathrow fully supports an integrated high-speed rail network in the UK. New strategic rail links to Heathrow could help ensure that the benefits of a third runway are felt nationwide. It would also help develop Heathrow as an integrated public transport hub in the manner of Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris Charles de Gaulle, and Frankfurt airports.
High speed rail won't solve Heathrow's capacity constraints
The Conservatives have proposed to replace a privately-funded third runway with a publicly-funded high-speed rail link between Heathrow, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds but:
- Heathrow doesn't have flights to Birmingham or Leeds.
- The total number of flights to Manchester is only 10,421 or less than 2% of Heathrow's total flights.
- Even if every flight from Manchester was replaced by a new high speed rail line then Heathrow would still be operating at 98% of capacity.
Building a high-speed rail link is not an alternative to building a third runway
- Even if all UK domestic passengers 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.
- On domestic flights, up to 74% of passengers are transferring on to international flights. This is an important service that Heathrow provides to regional areas and allows people outside London to have the same access to the world that Londoners expect.
- There are still flights between Heathrow and Paris despite the existence of a high-speed rail line, air still has a 25% market share. The only way to further reduce the number of flights to short-haul European destinations served by rail would be to ban them entirely.
The choice that is presented by anti-Heathrow campaigners of rail or air is a false one. Britain needs to give a higher priority to investment in all our transport infrastructure, and use our existing infrastructure more efficiently.
Supporting rail doesn't mean we can avoid the difficult decisions about a third runway at Heathrow. High-speed rail would complement a third runway but it cannot replace it.