Cllr Stephen Knight challenges the Conservative Party to come off the fence on Heathrow expansion

12.33.39pm GMT Mon 21st Jan 2008

'The Conservative Party must come off the fence on Heathrow expansion.

Whilst local Conservatives have fallen over themselves to join the fight

against expansion, it is still far from clear that a future Conservative

government would not itself give the go-ahead.

The Party's 'Quality of Life' policy report declares that there should

be "no new runways at Stansted or Gatwick", but fails to make a similar

unambiguous statement about Heathrow. What it does say is that "the

effect of [Heathrow] expansion on our carbon footprint would be factored

into the equation before any go-ahead is given." This is hardly the

language of clear opposition to expansion.

Worse still, the Conservative 'Economic Competitiveness' policy report

argues for "operational changes" to increase capacity of the existing

runways, which must be a reference to ending runway alternation. It then

goes further: "Beyond these measures to maximise existing resources, the

question arises of further runway capacity in the South East region and

more specifically at the London Area airports."

Further on, the report says the environmental effect of expansion "needs

to be balanced against the fact that Britain needs to have and retain

world-class facilities and capacities, and strategically important

aviation links that will be important to our future economic success."

Finally it says: "We recommend that an incoming Conservative

government's priority should be the strengthening of London's, and

Britain's, main air transport hub at Heathrow".

The Conservative Party's Shadow Transport Secretary, Theresa Villiers

MP, in a press release issued on 22nd November 2007 said: "We recognise

that the economic arguments for expanding Heathrow are much stronger

than any other airport in the South East". So would a Conservative Government

give the go-ahead to a third runway at Heathrow? The answer seems far from

an unambiguous 'no'.

Cllr Stephen Knight

Liberal Democrat London Assembly candidate for South West London'