I remember when it was cabbage fields with a lone green house, gravel pits filled with water, then large tents appeared along the Bath road, from that embryo grew to what we have now, even the greyhound track at Harlington corner went soon after, from then on the country side had gone, gobbled up into the name of progress.

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Its not always the biggest and the bestest, its them that make the least mistakes.

And Dick Turpin down the Bath Road.

Bath road! that's the long way round going to York and dya know the first thing he said on arrival?

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Its not always the biggest and the bestest, its them that make the least mistakes.

Obviously not 'stand and deliver'

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Lets be careful out there !

Ge me a pint!

nah it was wo-up Bess

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Its not always the biggest and the bestest, its them that make the least mistakes.

If they did build another airport then LHR would likely close; congested airspace being the reason.

Fact is you can't force airlines to use Stansted and Gatwick. People and airlines both want to fly to Heathrow. A few years ago an agreement that was setup in the early 90's preventing certain airlines operating transatlantic flights to LHR from the USA was dropped and the moment this happened Delta, US Airways and Continental all ditched Gatwick for Heathrow.
However, lack of capacity means that London is already losing traffic to Schiphol in Amsterdam and Paris CDG (Both airports have more runways than heathrow, which only has 2 )
Additionally, Heathrow won't ditch the cargo area. It's a very nice earner and I believe it's where most of the cargo comes in to in the UK. Remember that cargo doesn't just come in on the DHL A300's and B757's that visit, but also in the hold of passenger flights too.

At the moment Stanstead, Luton and Gatwick sort of supplement Heathrow.

Heathrow just hasn't got the infrastructure to expand without causing severe disruption. The road network is at bursting point already. Leave Heathrow as-is and expand somewhere else to take the strain.

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Lets be careful out there !

If Heathrow is unable to expand the powers that be won't leave it as is. It will close.
Why would they build a brand new multi runway Hub and leave Heathrow operating when they could move all flights to the new Airport and capture all the retail, Cargo and passenger revenue.
Heathrow and the surrounds would become a ghost town. (Ghetto)..oh sorry some parts are already there.

I for one am backing Heathrow. Survey completed and returned, as like a large percentage of the local population am employed on the Airport and rely on it for my income. There is also a huge amount of employment in the supporting roles of the Airport, Freight companies, Catering, Bus Companies, Hotels ect. as well as local small businesses, ie. Shops.

Heathrow will never close. It may get slightly smaller or stay as is. There is just too much investment in it.

A vote to expand it is a vote for Hillingdon gridlock on a scale you could never imagine.

A recent personal event of only last week will mean that in about 5 years I'm out of it and off to be a village idiot somewhere.

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Lets be careful out there !