YP Letters: Few benefits for regions if Heathrow is allowed to expand

HEATHROW has been conducting a variety of lavishly funded public relations exercises to counter the widely held perception that its expansion would be yet another South-East-centric project, which can only further entrench our country’s economic divisions.

And how better to do this than by placing 65 regions on a longlist to become “logistic” hubs for the third runway’s construction, when they know that a maximum of only four locations can ever be chosen?

By the time the 61 losers learn who they are, it is hoped that their regional leaders will have sold their souls, speaking up Heathrow expansion, to curry favour with the airport.

Clever. But cynical.

Equally contemptuous is the way in which Heathrow is using this stunt to claim economic benefits for the country, which is knows is not supported by the latest figures.

The DfT now claims a maximum gross benefit of £74.2bn from Heathrow expansion (less than the £75.3bn for Gatwick), with a “Net Present Value” (i.e. when costs are also accounted for) ranging from just £3.3bn (over 60 years!) to minus £2.2bn. Per head of population – even at the top of this range – this equates to no more than the price of a coffee at one of Heathrow’s many profitable outlets.

It is far from clear that these paltry benefits could ever do very much for any region outside of the South-East, even if all their leaders had been tricked into suggesting otherwise, as they fought hard not to become one of the 61 losers in this “logistic hub” dance-off.

And rather than being pumped discredited figures by Heathrow, or their accidental proxies, regional business people will want to ask serious questions of Heathrow about how it can come anywhere close to delivering the jobs and investment that it has promised in its publicity stunts, based on the new, trusted, downwardly revised economic benefit 
figures.

Moreover, the serious business people who contributed to the CBI’s 2016 report “Unlocking Regional Growth” will know that, while businesses recognise the need for better links to international markets, they believe that flights need to fly directly to centres of trade and commerce. In other words, that it will be through direct flights to the closest airports that the regions will become better connected – and not by concentrating (yet again) all the best infrastructure in the South-East.