LONG-TERM EFFECTS
In opting for the third runway at Heathrow in October 2016, the Government stressed how this airport is better placed than Gatwick to deliver benefits across the nation as a whole, and not just for London and the South East.
This is true - Heathrow is better placed to serve the wider nation and not just London - but not for the reason given. A plan to use some of the additional runway capacity created to operate more short-haul air domestic routes to Heathrow could just as easily be applied to an expanded Gatwick.
What could and should have been said in Heathrow’s favour in serving the wider nation is that there is a unique opportunity to use existing and planned rail links to provide a wide set of direct rail services to the airport from across a very wide catchment.
Current rail connections at the airport are only to/from London. But it would be relatively straightforward to connect much of the rest of the country directly by rail to Heathrow. And once this is done, the opportunity exists to transform the rail network west of London - creating the opportunity for orbital as well as radial travel by rail, using Heathrow as a hub rail station.
We know from the success of direct rail services to Manchester Airport (from widespread locations such as Scotland, the North East, Yorkshire, the whole of the North West, and soon from North Wales, too) that these services have huge appeal and are a commercial success.
The emphasis on direct is important. Research by the Institute for Transport Studies at Leeds University (Demand for Rail Travel to and from Airports, W F Lythgoe and M Wardman) shows us that the need for an intermediate en route interchange dissuades many people from using rail as an access mode to the airport, with a loss of 37%-40% of rail demand.
We also know that Heathrow Airport’s international competitors enjoy direct rail services (including high-speed rail) - think of Amsterdam’s Schiphol, CDG at Paris, and Frankfurt.
An expanded Heathrow surely merits the equivalent. The new Western Rail Link to Heathrow (first developed as the ‘Western Connection’ 20 years ago) will link the Terminal 5 station to the Great Western Main Line between Iver and Langley. Reading-T5 journey times could be as short as 26 minutes. The project is on a timeline for completion (subject to powers and funding) by as early as 2024. As Network Rail’s publicity points out, this link could improve access to the airport from the South Coast, the South West, South Wales and the West Midlands.
The recent decision in favour of Runway 3 should, of course, strengthen the case for the Western Rail Link’s speedy implementation. With a protected below-ground route reservation westwards from T5, it needs to be progressed before works start on the new runway. And it provides ready access to the Heathrow Express depot that needs to be relocated away from Old Oak Common to accommodate HS2.
But a western link will not realise its full potential if its use is restricted to trains running to/from Reading only. It could be upgraded so that it can provide a regular direct service to Heathrow from each of Cornwall/Devon and Somerset, from South Wales and Bristol, from the West Midlands and Oxford, from the East Midlands using the new Bicester-Milton Keynes East West Rail link, and from Hampshire. As has been proven at Manchester, and as the Leeds/ITS research confirms, this means much bigger modal transfer to rail. It also means the creation of a set of services that would generate a net revenue premium from the rail sector.
A possible southern link for Heathrow was also mentioned by the Secretary of State for Transport, in announcing the third runway.
The risk with both of these new links is that they are designed around meeting only local access needs. Key champions have included Slough Borough Council for the western link, and Wandsworth Borough Council for the southern link. Of course, these links can and should meet the need of places located just five to ten miles from the airport - and no doubt in doing so this may help mitigate some local hostility to the third runway and the impacts of flight path noise.
But the country will continue to have only one major international hub airport, and access to its rich range of business destinations - as the Secretary of State for Transport has recognised - needs to be a national matter. Therefore, just as the western link can serve a wider market, so too can the southern - and this means Surrey and Sussex, not just southwest London.
At this point, it becomes clear what a rail hub at Heathrow - with these two new rail links and the existing connections to London (including the Piccadilly Line and Crossrail’s connections to London’s West End, the City, Docklands and North Kent/Essex) - could offer:
- A rail location to rival King’s Cross/St Pancras.
- The chance to provide a meaningful alternative to the M25.
- A single point west of London with 360˚ rail connectivity, near the M4/M25 interchange (where in the 1980s a modest parkway station was once considered).
- And, of course, direct rail connectivity to the nation’s major international airport from across southern England, South Wales and the Midlands.
