By: Nick B

Why is there such an urgency to debate this? I know we have to plan long term, but UK airport passengers are falling, Stansted has spare capacity (with its single runway), Birmingham has spare capacity and is as accessible to those to the north of London as Gatwick is, and there is already an airport in Kent (Manston) with a runway almost as long as Heathrow, in an area of high unemployment, that is virtually unused. Take Heathrow cargo flights there and you have more capacity at that airport too. There are options that do not involve building a new airport or expanding existing ones. Should this not be part of the debate too?