There was a story in The Sunday Times yesterday that could be bad news for anyone using Heathrow Airport in the future. According to the article the Department of Transport(DfT) has plans for the airport and its surrounding area to be the next congestion charge zone for cars.
Its being driven by the DfT trying to meet stupid EU pollution directives along with the government saying one thing and doing another, and the Treasury seeing a chance to grab some easy money.
Heathrow is expanding, Terminal 5 opens next year and a lot of interests want a Terminal 6 and a third runway. The government’s not against this, they’re keen for airports like Heathrow and Stansted to expand, but they also want to be seen as green and have European Union targets on emissions they’ve agreed to reach. The way they want to meet them is not cut flights but hit the motorist again, by creating a congestion zone around Heathrow and charging people dropping off and picking up £20 and also hitting up cars in the vicinity for £10 for driving by.
A completely bogus plan because they know that for 95% of people driving to the airport paying £20 is going to piss them off, but not put them off, because trying to get to Heathrow with a couple of family members and luggage on public transport is worth paying £20 to avoid. This is beside the fact that the public transport system is incapable of coping if say 50% of passengers making car journeys to Heathrow switched to trains.
This is another situation where the travelling public in the UK are fish in a barrel being shot at by a greedy government with a phony green agenda. At the end of the Sunday Times article it says that BAA (British Airports Authority) are installing long term cycle parking at Terminal 5. Who the hell is going to cycle to the airport before they catch a flight.
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