Heathrow’s third runway and jobs

THE letter from union chief Tahir Latif [February 2] opposing a third runway at Heathrow again shows how disingenuous the airport has been in trying to suggest that it has the unions in the bag over the plan.

Increasingly, Heathrow’s promise of jobs is being seen as illusory. Even the Government’s National Policy Statement on the airport’s expansion anticipates that any new jobs to accrue by 2030 would be poorly paid, most likely displaced from other regions of the country, and would disappear by 2050.

Is it not telling that every major regional airport has now come out in opposition to a third runway at Heathrow? Unlike London-based opponents, they may not be contemplating the prospect of an extra 250,000 planes flying over the country’s most densely populated residential (and already most overflown) region.

They do, however, perceive that any expansion of Heathrow will undermine their own commercial operations and detract yet further from employment opportunities in the regions outside of what they consider to be an already overendowed Greater London.

Paul McGuinness Chair, No 3rd Runway Coalition