CALLS for the UK Government to consider a third runway for Britain's only hub airport at Heathrow and avoid a "capacity crunch" have been joined by Alistair Darling, the former Labour Chancellor and Transport Secretary.
As pressure grows on David Cameron from Conservatives within his own Government to change tack and approve the expansion, Mr Darling insisted the decision to enhance the UK capital's aircraft capacity at Heathrow could not be put off as business risked being lost to the continent.
He referred to how, in 2003, the then Labour Government made the case for expanding the airport and said it was important to both travellers in London but also to those across the UK, saying: "Many people rely on it to go to different parts of the world to do business, for pleasure or whatever."
The former minister rejected a new airport in the Thames – dubbed Boris Island as it is being backed by the London Mayor – on grounds of cost (estimated at £70 billion, which could put up landing charges and force airlines to move to Paris or Amsterdam) and also the impact upon the environment and birldlife.
Mr Darling said: "We were warned that even if you did everything possible, including things that were pretty unpleasant, the risk of having large aircraft flying through flocks of birds would be too great."
The Edinburgh South MP said expanding Stansted and creating "two half hubs" would not work, and that the building of a second runway at Gatwick was banned until 2019.
He added: "The front benches of all three parties are against the idea but they should look at it again and perhaps get a cross-party consensus. I don't think you can keep putting it off."
Nick Clegg and his LibDems are opposed to expansion on environmental grounds and will reaffirm their opposition at next month's conference.
Yet, of late, more Tory voices have been urging Mr Cameron to accept the need for a third runway. Tory backbencher Tim Yeo, chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee, is the latest to support calls to expand Heathrow, saying the issue "was a race in which Britain is now falling behind".
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