SHORT-TERM EFFECTS
Investment in long-term infrastructure has become more important, not less, according to the Government. Yet on better surface access to the UK’s airports, it has been less than enthusiastic.
This is odd. Superior road and rail links to the country’s main population centres was a factor in choosing Heathrow over Gatwick for the first new runway in the South East for 70 years.
But Heathrow’s Western Rail Link (see map, below), planned for 2021, will not happen until at least 2024. And the long-sought southern rail link remains no more than a vague aspiration.
A new study by the Airport Operators Association (AOA) claims that a 5% improvement in average journey times to and from airports would deliver a 2.7% increase in passenger numbers, generating an additional £1.9 billion a year for the UK economy and supporting 32,000 more jobs.
It points out that most road and rail access to most airports will have reached maximum capacity by 2030. As planning new infrastructure takes a decade or more, the Government should already be looking beyond that horizon.
The aviation industry creates £52bn a year and supports around one million UK jobs. In 2015, 251 million passengers flew from UK airports, an increase of 5.6% over the year before. It is likely that several airports will reach their capacity more quickly than was anticipated even five years ago. Gatwick was predicted to reach 40 million passengers a year in ten years’ time - it reached that landmark a few months ago.
The impact of airport links is clear. Take the rebuilt Reading station, planned as the centerpiece of substantial town centre regeneration. New buildings within walking distance of the station will be filled by businesses and people specifically because of direct trains to Heathrow, according to council cabinet member Tony Page.
The arrival of Crossrail from 2018 and more frequent new Hitachi trains to Paddington will generate substantial traffic. But Page says it is the new tracks from Langley to the platform space already built for the job beneath Terminal 5 that will drive the inward investment Reading craves. Proximity to Heathrow is what matters most, and central Reading will be 26 minutes from the departure gate, instead of more than an hour away by train.
On the South Coast, Southampton Airport expects to reach two million passengers for the first time in 2017. It trades heavily on being a one-minute covered stroll away from frequent South West Trains services to Waterloo.
This compact and efficient regional airport, with dozens of UK and European connections, has long benefited from faster, hassle-free surface access than Heathrow and Gatwick. It counts most of south London as comfortably within its one-hour catchment. It advertises long-haul links via Amsterdam and Paris as direct competition with its much larger neighbours, citing easy rail access as a key advantage.
The AOA argues that improved road and rail access generates economic activity that would not otherwise occur - tourism, international trade, productivity improvements and foreign investment. This then supports a range of economic activity down the supply chain - for example, Heathrow’s biggest freight export is Scottish smoked salmon.
The AOA is calling for new thinking on the way transport links are appraised, because current Department for Transport guidance understates the benefits from surface access work - it fails to take into account gains from trade, tourism, migration and foreign investment.
There is no National Policy Statement on airports, although a new aviation strategy is expected in 2017. During the lengthy runway debate, the aviation industry frequently complained that the Government does not have a national strategy for planning airports and the connectivity to their catchment areas.
The DfT’s Aviation Policy Framework, published in 2013, states that developers (usually airports) must pay the costs of upgrading or enhancing road, rail or other transport networks. The Government will only consider public funding where there are a wider range of beneficiaries.
Clearly around Heathrow it would be unreasonable for the airport to entirely fund massive changes to the M25, a link to HS2, the link to the Great Western, and a southern connection to Waterloo via Staines. The impact on aircraft landing fees, and therefore on air fares, would not be viable.
But investing in surface access can promote a shift towards public transport, benefiting passengers, airport workers and local businesses. This in turn benefits the local environment. At Heathrow, one-third of the pollution comes from surface transport.
Since 2006, the percentage of passengers using public transport to access eight major airports - Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City, Manchester, Birmingham and East Midlands - has increased by 5.9%.
At the five main London airports 40% of passengers use public transport, a modest 3% modal shift in a decade. But outside London the figure drops dramatically. Only 23% of passengers at Birmingham arrive by public transport. At East Midlands only 7% arrive that way. At Bristol, Bournemouth and Exeter airports there are no rail links, so every passenger arrives by road.
