Does Britain really need more runways?

Plans to expand Heathrow have become a high controversial topic of debate. But are we asking the wrong question? Emily Hohler reports.

Britain has been publishing plans to expand its airport capacity in the southeast for 50 years and has dropped every one of them. So the fate of the interim report published by Sir Howard Davies' Airports Commission is uncertain, says the FT. He won't even be making his final report until after the general election in 2015.

But his central recommendation, that Britain needs two extra runways one by 2030 and the second by 2050 is "sensible and should be heeded". London's airport facilities will struggle to cope with demand. Heathrow already operates at 98% capacity.

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Emily Hohler
Politics editor

Emily has worked as a journalist for more than thirty years and was formerly Assistant Editor of MoneyWeek, which she helped launch in 2000. Prior to this, she was Deputy Features Editor of The Times and a Commissioning Editor for The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph. She has written for most of the national newspapers including The Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail, She interviewed celebrities weekly for The Sunday Telegraph and wrote a regular column for The Evening Standard. As Political Editor of MoneyWeek, Emily has covered subjects from Brexit to the Gaza war.

Aside from her writing, Emily trained as Nutritional Therapist following her son's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes in 2011 and now works as a practitioner for Nature Doc, offering one-to-one consultations and running workshops in Oxfordshire.