Let Britain Fly: business needs "quick decision on airports expansion"

Mark Reynolds
03 February 2015

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Yesterday marked the close of the Airports Commission’s public consultation on the three short-listed options for airports expansion in London and the South East.

Mace is part of the Let Britain Fly campaign coalition and along with the wider business community has fully supported the Commission’s process. As a private UK company specialising in construction and consultancy services across the globe, our support for greater airport capacity in London is underpinned by our own growth ambitions, but also our desire to see the UK succeed.

Now the public consultation has drawn to a close we trust Sir Howard Davies to reflect on its findings, go away and come up with the right solution.

However the business community is rightly concerned that we do not extend even further a national debate that has been ongoing for at least 40 years. There is already a real, measurable economic cost to jobs and trade from our extended deliberations on airport capacity.

"With less than one hundred days to go until the general election, Let Britain Fly and the business community are together calling on UK political leaders to commit in their manifestos to ‘a quick decision on airports expansion'"

Economic growth doesn’t wait and unless our political leaders act swiftly on Sir Howard’s final report, not only will the UK’s competitors benefit, but also the faith in our decision-makers to resolve long term infrastructure issues will evaporate.

The evidence for additional runway capacity could not be clearer. Britain trades 20 times more with countries with which we have a direct and regular air link. Heathrow handles 40% of the UK’s freight by value.

Growing our runway capacity will growth these numbers. It will also help thousands of firms like ours to expand and post more jobs on our vacancies website. Mace exports British expertise to more than 65 countries worldwide.

More direct long haul links would make a practical difference to our business by cutting the number of flights and nights required to meet with our international clients (and carbon emissions too).  

One thing is clear from our experience abroad. All the time we procrastinate on a runway decision, our global competitors are racing ahead, leaving the UK increasingly lagging behind. Last week Let Britain Fly published analysis by KPMG that revealed that over the next 20 years the world’s major cities are likely to have built over 50 new runways, providing enough capacity for an additional one billion passenger journeys a year. 

The analysis revealed that China alone will build one new runway per year over that period.

This is why with less than one hundred days to go until the general election, Let Britain Fly and the business community are together calling on UK political leaders to commit in their manifestos to ‘a quick decision on airports expansion guided by the Airports Commission’s final report’.

It’s time for less political talk and more concrete action. 

Mark Reynolds is chief executive of international consultancy and construction company Mace Group