The third runway

Is this “chocks away” at last for Heathrow, asked the Daily Mail. On Monday night, MPS voted by an overwhelming 415 votes to 119 to build a third runway at Britain’s biggest airport. After “50 years of wrangling, dithering and delays”, it seems that “the longest chapter of political cowardice in our history” is finally drawing to a close. Few emerged with much credit from the debate over where to site the first full-length runway in the southeast since the Second World War. Jeremy Corbyn gave his MPS a free vote – because the plan has strong union support – but suggested that he may reverse the decision if he came to power. And the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, who had promised his Uxbridge constituents that he would lie down in front of the bulldozers, conveniently missed the vote: he was out of the country on a hastily arranged visit to Afghanistan.

There’s a good reason why MPS have dragged their feet for so long, said The Times: Heathrow “is in the wrong place”. Prevailing winds mean that planes coming in to land have to fly low over the city, and the airport is surrounded on all sides. Building a new runway means “compounding one disastrous planning mistake with another”. It means “destroying 800 homes in three villages, and spreading the blight of air traffic noise and pollution over much of west London”, as annual flights will increase from 480,000 to 740,000. The plan also involves digging a tunnel for the M25 so planes can land on top of it. The cost, at £14bn, is roughly twice that of rival airport expansion plans. And it seems likely that taxpayers will pick up the bill for the transport links required – estimated at about £10bn. Even so, the case for a new runway is “overwhelming”, said Andrew Adonis in the Financial Times. “Heathrow is the UK’S only hub airport, and it is full.” It has two runways, where its European rivals – Paris’s Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam’s Schiphol – have four and six. If the UK “cannot access new and expanding overseas markets with direct flights, ‘Global Britain’ will be a joke, not a national policy”. This is about far more than a new runway. “When a hub airport does well, the nation does well.” Crucial infrastructure decisions shouldn’t be blocked by a “Nimby veto”.

Yet the Nimbies may still prevail, said Josh Spero in the FT. Four local councils, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, will launch legal challenges. If Heathrow’s plans survive judicial review, there will be a public consultation, followed by a planning application. At best, construction will start in 2021, with the runway opening in 2025 or 2026. In the meantime, why is the Foreign Secretary still in his job, asked Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. If Johnson refused to support the Government’s position on Heathrow, “he should have resigned or been fired”. Without collective responsibility, cabinet government breaks down entirely: what’s to stop other ministers dodging difficult votes? The Foreign Secretary must “agree to take responsibility publicly for the Heathrow decision. Or go.”