Stansted runway facing long delay
By Michael Harrison, Business Editor
19 May 2005
Construction of a second runway at Stansted will be delayed by several years if the £4bn project has to be financed entirely by passengers using the Essex airport, BAA warned yesterday.
The airport operator said the timetable for opening the runway had already slipped by more than a year. The Government gave the go-ahead last year for a second runway to open in 2011-12, but BAA said yesterday it would not be ready until 2013 at the earliest, even if part of the cost was met by higher charges on passengers at Heathrow and Gatwick. If the runway had to be funded on a stand-alone basis, then completion of it would be delayed by "several years" beyond that date, BAA said.
How necessary is this A120 Braintree to Marks Tey Improvement really going to be? In the light of the uncertainty surrounding Stansted, should the H.A. be forging ahead?
The Trans-European Network (TEN) is a massive road and rail infrastructure project subsidised by the EU that essentially facilitates the export of cheap food and manufactured items from Eastern Europe.
This is not about removing the east - west traffic from Essex's roads - it is about bringing more freight through Harwich and creating extra east - west traffic! We don't need these imports, so why encourage them?
On 5.4.2005, oil prices hit fresh historic highs. In the light of this, this country cannot afford to increase its reliance on cheap imports.
The focus needs to be shifted away from the Dublin to Brussels road to the needs of Essex, i.e. the focus should be on the revitalisation of our railways and road building should include necessary improvements to existing networks rather than neglecting them in favour of a 13.1km new dual-carriageway that slices across the arable land of rural England, destroying the setting of our country villages forever. It is not impractical to link the A12 with the A120 Braintree to Stansted road in a way that moves traffic efficiently and benefits local communities, road improvements being coupled with rail and bus service enhancements. The Proposed Southern Route does not achieve this
objective.