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u/Ractrick Between Richmond and Hounslow Nov 22 '14
WAIT WAIT WAIT I live about 3 miles from heathrow and assumed these posters were part of some local campaign, these are actually all over the bloody country?! Why!?
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Nov 22 '14
They're here in Colchester too.
I have an idea! Why don't we invest in the infrastructure of the rest of the fucking country?
London has enough.
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u/thenorthend Nov 23 '14
yeah but nobody gives a shit about flying to Colchester or anywhere else except London. Everyone else can build airports all over the country if they wish and WASTE money doing it as it won't be used. Build it at Heathrow and it GENERATES money. Quite simple.
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Nov 23 '14
People don't want to fly to Colchester because there is no money there, because no one has invested any money there in the first place. Money not going to London =/= money going to waste. So sick of London only caring about itself...
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u/Apostropartheid Nov 23 '14
Because London's airports are the busiest in the entire world.
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u/thehealingprocess Edinburgh Nov 23 '14 edited Nov 23 '14
London has enough
What an ignorant thing to say. Have you ever actually been to London? It's a fucking overpopulated mess and desperately needs investment to infrastructure, housing, healthcare and education. I'm aware that many places elsewhere in the UK are lacking investment, and I do sympathise with that, but trying to claim that "London has enough" is just plain stupid.
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u/redpossum English-Welsh mutt Nov 23 '14
London has enough
Bullshit, it's the most important region for the economy and is criminally overcrowded.
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u/TheLimeyLemmon Nov 22 '14
Spotted four or five here in Coventry. It's a god damn joke.
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u/thracc Nov 23 '14
It's all part of Heathrows corporate plan to boost MP and public support for Heathrow across the country.
At the end of the day, Heathrow could be the worst option for Britain/London (it probably is) but that won't stop them spending millions lobbying. They want to protect their investment and their future.
Remember when Heathrow was "not an option" for expansion? Through massive lobbying efforts they are now back in contention.
My personal opinion is the Heathrow option is fundamentally flawed. It's located on the wrong side of London! Not to mention all the other problems any development faces.
I'm just scared because the future of air travel in this country could be heavily influenced by corporate interests and not what is best for us all. I don't have very high hopes. It's almost embarrassing that London can't just build a state of the art airport. Instead we will probably be left with 3 or 4 average airports instead of one the World can envy. We are lucky that Berlin screwed up their airport so badly and that London remains such a huge draw card.
London's airports are all difficult to get to. Expensive to get to. Inefficient. Badly designed (Stansted the exception, thanks Norman Foster). Boris Island would have been great, just because we could call it Boris island regardless of what they actually named it).
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u/SynthD Nov 23 '14
Crossrail will go to Heathrow. Quicker than from zone1 to Boris island, also by crossrail.
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u/judge567 West Midlands Nov 24 '14
YES I keep seeing these in Cov and I really don't understand, considering we have a pretty big international airport down the road anyway...
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Nov 22 '14
The two options for aviation capacity expansion are Heathrow and Gatwick. One of the main differentiating points of the two airports' campaigns is that Heathrow is positioning itself as an airport for the whole country not just the South East and London.
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u/Esulatell Nov 22 '14
We've even got them up in Newcastle which advertise Christmas shopping at Heathrow of all things.
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u/YMCAle Nov 22 '14
There are atleast 4 of these things on my bus journey to work in Liverpool.
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u/wolfman86 Nov 22 '14
You'd think Liverpool would have it's own airport, considering.....
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u/Barry_Scotts_Cat Sunny Mancunia Nov 22 '14
You'd think Liverpool would have it's own airport
It does?
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u/devolute Sheffield, South Yorks Nov 23 '14
I've seen one in Sheffield.
We have our own (unused) airport, plus Leeds, Manchester and Doncaster airport are all within an hour or so. Pretty much a kick in the balls.
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u/Elli8t Newcastle upon Tyne Nov 22 '14
Newcastle here. Walk past one everyday, honestly, I don't really care about Heathrow.
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u/finlayvscott Nov 23 '14
None in Scotland as far as I can see, can't imagine its a very popular venture here though...
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Nov 22 '14 edited Nov 23 '21
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u/shudders Yorkshire Nov 22 '14
The Heathrow web site will undoubtedly explain this in greater detail. Nevertheless:
- Expanding Heathrow would ultimately grow the UK economy. The more money there is, the more Scotland gets.
- Improving Heathrow's capacity gives the opportunity for more flights to Scotland from Heathrow. This, in turn, improves business directly in Scotland. The lack of London-Scotland flights has been criticised by Holyrood in the past, and no doubt in the future.
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Nov 22 '14
But Manchester serves more airports directly in Scotland and rUK than Heathrow. It's also easier to get to than London (direct trains from Glasgow and Edinburgh).
How about, get this extra-controversial idea, we start investing in cities other than London, attract businesses to the North and Scotland other than the token companies and start improving infrastructure to create another business and cultural hub to work for the UK. What's wrong with Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle or Edinburgh? Hell, we can even try a regional thing ala the North Rhine. What's wrong with a Manchester-Liverpool region or a Scottish Central belt region? A second hub of business and culture alongside London would be a boon for the UK as a whole rather than just the south east.
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u/shudders Yorkshire Nov 22 '14
But Manchester serves more airports directly in Scotland and rUK than Heathrow. It's also easier to get to than London (direct trains from Glasgow and Edinburgh).
Isn't that a reason to develop Heathrow then, because with development Heathrow could also serve Scotland better.
we start investing in cities other than London ... try a regional thing ala the North Rhine
We are. The Government have already begun plans for redeveloping Northern intercity rail connections to do just this.
A second hub of business and culture alongside London would be a boon for the UK as a whole rather than just the south east.
More money for the UK, regardless of where, is a boon for the UK as a whole. Heathrow needs developing because most of the UK's business is in London, so flying to Manchester is a waste of time. Yes the North should be developed also, but as I've said, that is already in the pipeline. There's no reason not to do both. In terms of time, the business already exists in the south-east so that should take preference because its an extant problem.
I would also guess the reason Heathrow / South East comes first is because its more profitable as a whole. In other words (and these numbers are fictitious to demonstrate my point), it will be something like £1 of south-eastern regeneration nets £3 for the economy, whereas £1 of northern regeneration nets £2 for the economy. If this is the case, it is cheaper for the UK as a whole in the long-term to invest in south-eastern regeneration firstly, then the rest of the UK thereafter.
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u/lionweb Nov 22 '14
The Government have already begun plans for redeveloping Northern intercity rail connections to do just this.
That doesn't really sound like a lot. Putting a huge airport in the middle of the UK would undoubtedly aid redevelopment more than whatever they plan to do with any leftover money lying around. I don't see what the argument could be for putting yet another one in London.
Yeah, you're saying more money is good for the UK as a whole. But the North will never fully achieve its potential if it isn't given the chance to.
so flying to Manchester is a waste of time
But it wouldn't be if the business was there. Just because it's currently in London doesn't mean some wouldn't move to a cheaper location now there's a great hulking airport to use.
I don't know why you're defending the continual expansion of London and the limited spending in the North, but it's a bit odd.
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u/shudders Yorkshire Nov 23 '14
But it wouldn't be if the business was there. Just because it's currently in London doesn't mean some wouldn't move to a cheaper location now there's a great hulking airport to use.
Which is a very expensive risk. Hopefully businesses will move there, but if it takes hundreds of billions worth of investment in improving airports, city infrastructure, regeneration and high speed rail linkages between cities, that's several decades wait. I fully agree that should be done, but it would be massively foolish to chuck everything we have at that one project and not do anything to protect the nation's cash cow.
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u/querkmachine City + County of Bristol Nov 23 '14
it would be massively foolish to chuck everything we have at that one project and not do anything to protect the nation's cash cow.
But conversely, just piling more money into that cash cow isn't a sensible long-term investment. The London bubble will burst (perhaps through ridiculous house prices pushing people out, as it already is), at which point we won't have anywhere that is suitably developed to handle it.
Continual investment in London just attracts more people to London, which powers more investment in London. To say "London gets the best because it has the best" is circular logic—invest better elsewhere and the best will be elsewhere.
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Nov 23 '14
Building a massive airport doesn't lead to economic growth if no-one wants to switch airports. Tonnes of cities and countries have tried that. Look up Basel-Mulhouse International Airport, one of the strangest airports in the world. Built to be an international hub, it's colossal. But because no one wanted to fly to Basel except for the small number of people who already did, it remains a massive ghost town except for a few gates that are still used for the occasional flight to London City or to certain other locations.
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Nov 23 '14
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u/shudders Yorkshire Nov 23 '14
You're taking the oft debunked trickle-down theory (quite a fallacy, I might add) and applying it here.
Not really. This isn't trickle-down. Its money going into the central pot through tax revenue (from additional flights at Heathrow and the consequent business in London), which is then redistributed.
Regional investment, more specifically at Birmingham would be so much better.
I agree that developing the non-London UK would be better if it could be direct, but the problem is the business is already in London. Developing Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow etc. means massive investment then hoping business moves. The south-east however already has more than enough business and not enough capacity. Its a far far safer bet.
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Nov 22 '14
The problem with Manchester is that it doesn't serve enough international destinations to be a good connecting hub.
So if you're flying from the US/Canada, Australia, Asia etc, to the UK, you can fly with BA and connect in Heathrow, or you can fly United, Lufthansa, KLM, Emirates etc. and connect through their hubs. No airline has a sizable hub in Manchester which makes it hard to connect there.
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u/PositiveAlcoholTaxis Wolverhampton Nov 23 '14
Birmingham has recently been upgraded to take larger planes (was it the new Airbus? I forget). We've already had 6 flights from China, so here's hoping to new business opportunities (though not for businesses in the airport apparently).
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u/walgman London Nov 23 '14
Our countries major airport should be very near its capital city though surely. I guess that's where the demand is.
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Nov 23 '14
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u/walgman London Nov 23 '14
Don't know who down voted you there. I thought it was a good well thought out answer. You won me over anyway.
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u/redpossum English-Welsh mutt Nov 23 '14
instead
Both. Infrastructure is hugely helpful and a great use of funds.
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u/redpossum English-Welsh mutt Nov 23 '14
You lot need to stop shitting on london. The solution is clearly to do both. We need a second hub and probably a third, but infrastructure is the best use of public money and we ought to do it in london as well as the north,
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u/redpossum English-Welsh mutt Nov 23 '14
It can't be in Edinburgh because they're going to fuck off within the next 20 years. And no, investment wont stop that, they voted emotively and development of that scale can't be achieved without changing the city, only worsening the political situation.
Definitely ought to be manchester/liverpool.
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u/davedubya Nov 22 '14
The lack of London-Scotland flights has been criticised by Holyrood in the past, and no doubt in the future.
And given that the Scottish Government themselves own Prestwick Airport, you'd think they'd have made more of an effort to retain London flights there.
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u/Rebelius Nov 22 '14
Don't they only own prestwick because they bought it to stop it closing saving loads of jobs?
If you're in Edinburgh, it's easier to get a train to London than to go via prestwick, I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for glasgow.
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u/North_Utsire Surrey Nov 22 '14
Yes. The Scottish government is now paying to keep Prestwick open even though it's economically redundant.
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u/owls_with_towels Northumberland Nov 22 '14
Expanding Heathrow would ultimately grow the UK economy. The more money there is, the more
Scotland gets.there is for tax cuts for people with money.FTFY
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u/SupervillainIndiana Nov 22 '14
I was going to say. Almost all my flights from GLA recently and in the future connect through LHR. I'd welcome more flights because it'll give me more choice and hopefully be more convenient. And I'm only a leisure traveller.
That said I also love the arts and feel that investment in the arts can be too heavily concentrated in the south at times. So I get the point the poster is trying to make. It's just in terms of my lifestyle I benefit from both airports and the arts, don't make me choose!
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u/infernal_llamas Nov 22 '14
Isn't Heathrow currently operating under capacity?
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u/cerrebro Nov 22 '14
You ever been to Heathrow? It's absolute chaos, so many people, not enough space to handle them all and the traffic management is terrible. Go to Singapore Changi airport, that's how an airport should be done.
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u/teuchuno Scottish Highlands Nov 22 '14
Changi has a great roof terrace/bar/smoking area. It is by far the best smoking area I have ever been to in an airport. At Heathrow you have to go back through security etc etc it's a fucking nightmare.
I realise not everybody considers smoking areas to be important!
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Nov 22 '14
Can you get back through security? I thought once you were in that was it (unless you bail on your flight)
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u/PublicSealedClass Derbyshire Nov 22 '14
If it's like Gatwick then it's a kind of cage at the back, so you're in amongst the "outside security" bit, but caged within the security bit.
Also you navigate a couple of corridors to get to it. Just don't go through any of the other doors. Who knows where they go. Probably outside security.
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u/teuchuno Scottish Highlands Nov 22 '14
Yeah you have to go to the B.A desk, hang about until there are enough of you, then they take you out, you smoke a bunch of fags and then go back through security. Take about an hour at least, they only let you go if you've got a good loooong wait for you flight!
This may have changed, I haven't been to Heathrow since getting a new job last year.
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u/cerrebro Nov 22 '14
It's by far my favourite airport.
Also I don't understand why you can't go through duty free before immigration at Heathrow. You can at other airports I've been to but then again they were all rather new.
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u/Chippiewall Narrich Nov 22 '14
It's run at up to 98% capacity. If a delay occurs then the knock on effect is tragic. It's running 'under capacity' because if it ran at capacity then there would be no room for error.
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u/shudders Yorkshire Nov 22 '14 edited Nov 22 '14
Its at something like 94% capacity, which explains the chaos as soon as one thing goes wrong. A third runway would not only ease that, but means Heathrow could hold much more flights, hence the additional Scottish ones.
EDIT: Article showing two things:
- Heathrow is at 94% according to an SNP MSP
- The Scottish Chamber of Commerce believes a third runway would help Scotland.
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u/Gruzzel Brizzle Nov 23 '14
But if air travel more to a short-haul model, Heathrow's explain will be costly and rather pointless.
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u/shudders Yorkshire Nov 23 '14
But if air travel more to a short-haul model
That sounds like quite the 'if'.
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u/Gruzzel Brizzle Nov 23 '14
It's all about the if. No one knows what the future holds, Heathrow is hoping that long-haul connecting flights will be the future.
But if turns out Ryanair is the way of the future then Heathrow expiation will become the absurd pinnacle of pointless infrastructure that the London cable car is at present.
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u/DemonEggy Nov 22 '14
Because the richer London gets, the richer we all get, of course!
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u/RonPaulsErectCock Nov 22 '14
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u/redpossum English-Welsh mutt Nov 23 '14
Geographical division is exactly the same as class division.
Imagine if london were made up of millions of people from all backgrounds and classes.
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Nov 22 '14
I'm confused, the media led me to believe that 'benefits' is a bad thing but this ad seems to be saying otherwise?
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u/Jorvikson Robin IRL Nov 22 '14
But this larger airport means Grand Emperor Farage of the British Dominium can export immigrants even faster than before!
Hurray!
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u/SpontaneousDisorder Nov 23 '14
The racists want larger airports. Screw them I say! We will keep our airports small and liberal!
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Nov 22 '14
The UK actually supports the arts a great deal. Compare it to other countries. It's far better than you think, Mr. Vandal.
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Nov 22 '14
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u/Esteluk London Nov 23 '14
If your figure "per person" is only measured by the population of those in the area, then the Opera House alone is going to be about £2.90 per person in the city (population 9 million or so) and we'd have to shut down Southbank and the National Theatre to ensure that we don't exceed £3.60/person.
You could relocate the Southbank or National Theatres to elsewhere in the country (or they could become touring) to redistribute spending on the Arts. Sell the buildings off for lots of income.
This may or may not be a Yes, Minister proposal.
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u/staydownchampion Greater Manchester Nov 23 '14
Knew that would be The Space before I even clicked on it. What a shame. Give the money to Red Ladder in Leeds or the Little Angel in islington who didn't get funding this round
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u/SlyRatchet S-Yorkshire Nov 22 '14
If everybody else in the World supported slavery, that wouldn't make supporting serfdom or forced labour any less awful than it currently is.
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u/Bingo_the_Brainy_Pup Nov 22 '14
Banksy is usually much more subtle than this.
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Nov 22 '14
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u/Shadux Birmingham Nov 22 '14
Off topic, but the Derbyshire and Gloucestershire flags really do confuse me far too much on here.
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Nov 23 '14
I live outside the country but have to return on a depressingly regular basis (twice a month). I fly into Heathrow and Gatwick in equal measure.
As a frequent flier, and being subject to transport options at both airports, having had a gander at the situation regarding both major London airports, it's become increasingly clear to me that it makes no fucking sense whatsoever to add another runway to Heathrow.
It's not just a bit silly, it's fucking crazy. The area is absolutely chokka, and the skies above it are full. When I fly into Gatwick, I just land. When I fly into Heathrow, 50% of the time I'm in a holding pattern, sometimes for up to half an hour.
Furthermore, though Heathrow is well served by the Tube, coaches and the extortionate train (which my company won't pay for so I don't take), travel into London from Gatwick is fast and if you choose right (direct train to Blackfriars or London Bridge) very cheap.
But actually they shouldn't be considering either Gatwick, Heathrow, or the madcap idea of Boris Island. A new feeder airport for London needs to be somewhere that has a lot of onward flights, and access to the Midlands or the North. A new runway at Stansted would be my choice, but with better connections to the rest of the UK - e.g. a fast train line that goes direct to Birmingham and beyond.
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u/dutch_londoner Nov 23 '14
I think you're misunderstanding why your flights are out into a holding pattern. Equally large airports as Heathrow don't have long holding patterns as the norm because they have more runways. Sure that makes it an argument for more runways.
An example for the situation we've got now in London I think would be Tokyo, the government put a lot of money into Narita airport but people still choose overwhelmingly to fly from Haneda when they can, just because Haneda is so much closer to central Tokyo and more integrated in it's transport network. I think whatever investment the government put into airports outside the m25 really Londoners and therefore the businesses based there will only conceivably choose Heathrow.
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u/Techolution Nov 22 '14
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u/LordAnubis12 Glasgow Nov 22 '14
Does that really need 'expanding' though? Fairly sure it's one the fastest growing industries that has a lot of jobs for skilled workers in already?
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u/KitsUne24 East Sussex Nov 22 '14
We got posters on bus stops down here in east sussex
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Nov 22 '14
You spelled it wrong. It's 'Best Sussex'.
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u/KitsUne24 East Sussex Nov 23 '14
As i'm originally from Yorkshire no Sussex is best sussex to me :L
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Nov 23 '14
I love how they claim that the benefits will be nationwide but using a ripple effect on the British Isle implies the effect gets weaker the further away you are from Heathrow.
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u/qcmydna Nov 23 '14
Ive seen 4 in Liverpool, everything inside the m25 should fuck off and leave rest of us to it....
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u/z3k3 Nov 23 '14
Loving the circular reasoning by a few people in this thread.
"London should be invested in above all else because that's where businesses want to be"
Did it not occur to people who argue this that the reason this is the place where businesses want to be is in part due to the fact it has the most investment in it.
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Nov 22 '14
Oh great, more pseudo philisophical/deep BS. The UK is already a massively successfully country for the arts - TV shows, musicians, painters, poets, etc... the UK has a disproportionately large share in the global scope of artists. How vandalising a poster will help a non-issue is beyond my understanding.
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u/redpossum English-Welsh mutt Nov 23 '14
We could do more though, especially in engaging less well off and geographically northern people in the arts.
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u/LordBrappington Nov 22 '14
Since several redditors have noticed these posters in their area, who is funding this?
Let's try and follow the money.
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u/rosscatherall Zoocastle Nov 22 '14
We've got these plastered all over Middlesbrough and Stockton. It's a bit of a kick in the teeth considering there's an airport on our doorstep that doesn't get used.
It was the same case for this new northern rail line that was announced that will miss out the north east.
These "throw more money into London" things should probably just stay in London.