Yesterday the BAA announced plans to rebuild Heathrow Terminal Two
before the London Olympics in 2012. The Financial Times reports today
the comments of Mike Clasper, BAA's chief executive that some form of
road charging was likely to be needed at Heathrow - either an area wide
charge taking in the M25 and M4 or some localised Heathrow only access
to discourage motorists driving to the airport.This will , Mr Clasper,
says discourage driving to the airport and encourage the use of public
transport. This is all well and good but where then are the proposals
to improve rail access to Heathrow via the Staines curve or GWML
connection at Colnbrook from the south (Woking etc) and west (Reading)
as well as the Airtrack proposals to link Waterloo. Is the premium
Heathrow Express going to be subsumed into an augmented Central London
Heathrow service - ( I say chaps why don't we call such a spiffing idea
Crossrail) as is proposed for the Gatwick Express ;-}). Such
infrastructure does not pop up like mushrooms overnight - somebody
needs to start thinking and acting on infrastructure link improvements
now. Cynics might suggest this is a cunning plan by BAA to start
charging admission to the airports but fortunately such cynics do not
participate in this group.Mind you local residents do regard BAA's
assurances that " they have no further territorial claims to make" on a
par with " your cheque is in the post" and "of course, I'll respect you
in the morning".