Thomas Woldbye, chief executive of Heathrow, went on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and issued what amounts to an ultimatum to a sitting government: back a third runway or the money “will be invested somewhere else in the world.” Without it, he said, the UK would face a “huge missed opportunity.” A decision, he suggested, would come in the new year.
The pitch is blunt. “It’s not about allocating this money elsewhere. It’s private money. It’s not public money. So hence, it will not go into the UK,” Woldbye said. Capital, in other words, has a passport; the rest of us don’t.
Who Owns the Sky
A consortium of investors owns Heathrow, led by French private equity firm Ardian. The other owners include the Qatar Investment Authority, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the China Investment Corporation. Money from Paris, Doha, Riyadh and Beijing crosses borders without a visa, a detention centre or a single form. People living beneath the flight paths get a consultation.
Woldbye said it would be “good to know” the government’s position after Prime Minister Andy Burnham declined to say whether he backs expansion. As Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham opposed the scheme; he said he believed the matter was “for London and Londoners.” He added: “I think we ought to hear the voice of people there first. It’s not right for me to just jump straight in on the back of the consultation.” Downing Street declined to comment further. Woldbye said he hoped the prime minister would “come along” and noted that unions back the project.
What the Concrete Costs
A third runway would require demolishing hundreds of homes, diverting rivers and rerouting the M25 between junctions 14 and 15 through a tunnel under the new runway. The estimated price is £33bn. Flights, now capped at 480,000 a year, could climb to 720,000—nearly 2,000 a day on average. Heathrow already serves more than 80 million travellers a year through four passenger terminals and two runways.
On noise, Woldbye claimed Heathrow had seen a “stark” reduction over the past 40 years and said the “trend will continue.” He didn’t mention what happens to homes in the way. His biggest worry, he said, is “the years of uncertainty.”
The Government Shuffles Its Feet
The Department for Transport said it was reviewing consultation responses and “considering the appropriate next steps.” A spokesperson said the government supports airport expansion “across the country where this can contribute to growth and opportunity, while meeting the tests on the environment,” and that Heathrow expansion had the “potential to deliver around £40 billion in economic benefits across the country.”
The Airports National Policy Statement, which provides the basis for deciding whether to grant a new runway, got its last update in 2018, eight years ago, and officials are still finalising it. The runway was scheduled to open by 2035, nine years from now, subject to plans being submitted and approved. Heathrow itself has proposed a four-year delay to 2039 because of planning and regulatory issues.
Last year, then-chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the government-backed expansion, saying “a third runway is badly needed” and that the government could not “duck the decision any longer.” A year later, the government is still ducking it, while the chief executive publicly leans on the new prime minister. Woldbye said he hadn’t yet met current Chancellor John Healey, but would tell him the airport “contributes dramatically to the economy” and “we are now full.” He added that Heathrow is preparing a planning application to submit in the next couple of years, with any decision guided by the government’s national policy statement.
Opposition on the Ground
The third runway has faced opposition from local residents, politicians and climate campaigners for decades. The base reporting gives no detail on what those residents and campaigners are doing now. That silence is its own kind of record: the consortium gets a morning radio slot, while hundreds of households facing demolition get a line about opposition. Woldbye insists the benefits “will be felt all over the country because our supply chain reaches all the way from the north all the way to the south.” It’s “not just for Londoners,” he said. The bulldozers, though, will be.