Aviation Strategy

Written evidence from Stop HS2 (AS 54)

1. Stop HS2 is the national campaign group against the proposed £33billion High Speed 2 railway. As such general aviation strategy is outside our remit: however there are obvious cross over points between aviation strategy and high speed rail policies.

2. Stop HS2 believes the assumptions behind the HS2 proposal are flawed and it should be cancelled entirely.

3. Our answers below are most relevant to the following inquiry questions:

1 e. Where does aviation fit in the overall transport strategy?

2 c. How can surface access to airports be improved?

3 b. Will the Government’s proposals help reduce carbon emissions and manage the impact of aviation on climate change? How can aviation be made more sustainable?

HS2 is not part of an overall transport strategy

4. One of Stop HS2's concerns is that HS2 has not been developed as part of a wider transport strategy. The proposed spur to Heathrow was not included in the original plans but has been retrofitted, which means the service pattern direct to Heathrow will be very low, due to capacity constraints. The spur will not open until Phase 2 of HS2, due to be completed in the mid 2030s.

5. It is high risk to plan a £33 billion high speed rail line separately to aviation policy, especially as that aviation policy may include plans for a new airport.

6. High speed rail policy should not be considered separately to aviation policy. As one witness told the Transport Select Committee last year, during the High Speed Rail inquiry

Q378 Steven Costello: The argument is that each node should be one of these pearls on a necklace. Therefore, as in Germany and France, an airport is an interchange directly located on the through line, but with high speed through lines so that not every train needs to stop. As soon as you start getting into branch lines or spurs, you start to lose that seamlessness and the ability to generate modal shift. [1]

HS2 is not an alternative to Heathrow third runway

7. The pressure on the previous Secretary of State for Transport to reopen the discussion of a third runway at Heathrow restarted earlier this year, shortly after she had given the go-ahead for HS2 in January 2012. This shows that many people do not consider HS2 to be an alternative to Heathrow expansion.

Timing of HS2 planning and the Davis Commission review

8. The Davis Commission on future aviation capacity is not due to report until summer 2015. Meanwhile the Government want to deposit the HS2 hybrid bill in October 2013, with the intention of getting it through Parliament by spring 2015.

9. If the Davis Commission recommends building a new airport, then the HS2 hybrid bill will have legislated for a route without links to this new airport. In these circumstances, it is highly likely that the Government of the day will scrap the HS2 legislation. It would have been a huge waste of Parliamentary time.

Modal Shift

10. In the three economic cases for HS2 (2010, 2011 and 2012), the expected modal shift from air to high speed rail has fallen significantly.

11. The table below shows that HS2 Ltd now expect a significantly smaller modal shift from air: the 2010 case which had 8% modal shift from air in 2033, compared to the most recent 2012 case which has 3% modal shift from air in 2037.

	Classic Rail	New Trips	Air	Car
2033 - (2010 economic case)	57%	27%	8%	8%
2043 - (2011 economic case)	65%	22%	6%	7%
2037 - (2012 economic case)	65%	24%	3%	8%

HS2 Ltd data: modal shift when rail usage has doubled.

12. There is in any case, limited potential of HS2 to reduce internal flights. There are currently no scheduled flights between London and Birmingham. Rail's share of the London Manchester market is increasing by about 5% a year. In 2009, 74% of passengers on domestic flights between Heathrow and Manchester were transferring onto a connecting flight [2] .

Carbon emissions: HS2 is carbon neutral:

13. The limited modal shift explains in part why HS2 Ltd and the Department for Transport say HS2 is expected to be carbon neutral. [3]

Videoconferencing

14. With the growth of digital telecommunications and videoconferencing, people will be increasing using web-based alternatives to face-to-face meetings. This will affect the demand for air travel as well as rail travel.

Aviation Representation on HS2 Challenge Panels

15. When HS2 was originally being developed there were no aviation representatives on the scrutiny panels. [4] This may explain why one witness to last year's TSC inquiry on High speed Rail described the HS2 route as "in aviation terms, a thin route" [5] .

19 October 2012