Heathrow Runway 3 - Tell us the truth Villiers

One of our local MP's, Theresa Villiers is the Tory shadow Minister for Transport. I guess she's feeling pretty chuffed today. The Tories have been getting the right kind of headlines about their stand against the proposed new runway at Heathrow. They nearly defeated the government, due to a rebellion of Labour MP's, many from London.

Interestingly enough, not a single Tory broke ranks. All good opposition tactics, designed to make Gordon Brown look weak. There's just one problem. Some time in the next couple of years, there's a good chance that Dave Cameron may become the Prime Minister. At that point the fun and games stop and the job of running the country has to start. What have the Tories proposed instead of runway 3? Well Boris likes the idea of a new airport in an estuary. He's missed the obvious risk of bird strikes (we all saw what happened to the Airbus in New York when that happened). As for Cameron and Villiers. They propose a high speed rail network with a hub at Heathrow. They claim that this will remove thousands of short hop flights. Slots will be freed and no new runway will be needed. All very good you might think, but there's a pretty basic flaw.

The easier and more accessible you make Heathrow, the more flights there will be. Airlines will see Heathrow as an even better option for medium and long haul flights. Why would airlines want a base at East Midlands airport when Heathrow will be an easier option for milions more people. If Manchester is just over an hour away, with high speed check in on the train, why use Manchester Airport? The other thing is that even for short haul, the easier it becomes, the more people will travel. With the advent of Easyjet, many people commute from all sorts of strange places to work in London. All the High speed rail link will do is increase this.

Now I happen to support the new runway and the new rail links. It's called progress and it makes the economy more vibrant and stable. Whilst there is a price to pay and we have to minimise the impact on the economy, if we don't protect and develop the economy, then ultimately we'll fall behind. There won't be the money to pay for the NHS, Schools, Care for the Elderly. The jobs will move abroad. What seems bad now with the credit crunch will get much much worse.

I don't know if Villiers understands this and is keeping schtum for political reasons or if she's just not bright enough to have thought it through? Either way, if she isn't careful she'll be digging her own political grave. If we really want a greener future, we need an intigrated transport policy. This means understanding the effect one change has on all of the other parts of the network. One of the reasons the M25 is so overused is because the planners didn't take into account that people would use it to make short journeys of 1 or 2 junctions. It seems to me that the Tories really don't know what they want. Cameron wants to be green and have a high speed rail link. Boris wants to build an airport in a swamp, with all the billions of pounds of investment in new road and rail links, destroying mudland flats etc. Brian Coleman likes Heathrow and hates all tram schemes. As for Villiers, it seems all she wants to do is use transport policy as a stick to beat Gordon Brown with.

I suspect that if Villiers ever becomes the Minister for Transport, even the Tories will be harking back to the golden Age of John Prescott.