Heathrow’s future should not be viewed as just a London issue

The North East has two pressing needs that must be urgently addressed in developing our international links. One is access to Heathrow and the other is a sense of certainty.

Heathrow is an airport with huge significance to the regions of the UK. Let us be in no doubt about that.  Its expansion  is not simply a London-specific issue that can be addressed without consideration of the regions, and especially not without the needs of the north.

500 000 passengers fly on the Heathrow – Newcastle route each year, and over half of those are using Heathrow to ‘hub’ through onto other destinations.

Half a million passengers making clear what Government still seems to struggle to understand; Heathrow is an airport for the regions, and its future must take their needs into account.

We wouldn’t expect the Government to build a road without knowing what it is linking up. In the same way, the decision over Heathrow’s future should not be viewed as just a London issue. It is of national importance and the people travelling between London and the North East must have their voice heard.

At its core, the argument for expanding Heathrow is about maintaining Britain’s hub capacity. We are lucky in Newcastle – with seven flights a day at convenient times to the UK’s hub airport, we are well connected. Today. But what about in five or ten years’ time?

A quarter of all UK exports leave the country in the bellyhold of Heathrow’s planes. If the North East is to keep powering the nation’s exports, it stands to reason that we also need to be able to actually get those exports out the country.

For high value or perishable goods – they must go by plane. For SMEs sending their first order, this will be a box on a plane not a pallet on a ship. Constraining Heathrow constrains our exports – and exporting is what we in Newcastle are good at.

There are more direct benefits to the region. Researches at Quod predict Heathrow’s third runway would deliver £833m in contracts to North East suppliers during construction. They estimate a new runway at Heathrow is worth some 5,100 jobs here by 2050, a £4bn economic boost in total. These benefits considerably exceed the equivalent benefits from an expansion of Gatwick Airport.

But the argument we seek to win in Whitehall  is not just that jobs are created or safeguarded as a direct result of Heathrow expansion. It is that a government which finally takes a decision on Heathrow gives the north a sense of certainty. It gives the Northern Powerhouse the chance to start planning for growth rather than waiting as we look to improve our links to the wider world, something more important now than ever.

And of course, It is not just this government which needs to be providing that sense of certainty. That is why Labour MPs in the North East rightly signed a joint letter putting the case for Heathrow expansion, and why Labour council leaders across the north are making clear they too back the third runway.

Heathrow expansion is more important than just flights for London, and the sooner government realises that, the better.

Nick Forbes is leader of Newcastle City Council