DELEGATES from Heathrow and Gatwick Airports have been courting the business community in Scotland to win support for their respective plans for expanding airport capacity in the south east of England.
And further representations are scheduled as lobbying intensifies before the Davies Commission makes its final recommendation to the UK Government, expected after the general election in May.
The commission will launch a public consultation on its three short-listed options - a new runway for Heathrow, a new runway for Gatwick, or the extension of an existing runway at Heathrow - next week. So far, Heathrow Airport has won the backing of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce after hosting a series of roadshows with chambers in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Inverness and Glasgow.
Stuart Patrick, chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, said: "On balance we are more persuaded by the proposals for Heathrow expansion.
"We were not convinced that splitting international connections between Gatwick and Heathrow would serve our members so well."
But Gatwick has an ally in Edinburgh Airport, whose chief executive Gordon Dewar has described it as "the only viable option".
That came as Gatwick held its own chambers of commerce roadshows, with visits planned for Aberdeen and Inverness next month.
Scottish Chambers of Commerce, which represents 26 chambers across Scotland, acknowledged a "pressing need" to expand aviation capacity in the south east of England to help Scottish firms build trade links.
Head of policy and research Garry Clark declined to be "specific about what that might be", but said the Heathrow case was "compelling".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article