There has been much fuss and brouhaha about a judicial decision to rule out the further expansion of Heathrow, the large aerodrome to the west of London.
And quite right too.
As you both know I work for the Submerged Log Company, whose orifice is in Central London. I've worked there for more than 30 years. At first, when there was no internet, one perforce had to commute to where the work was, and live within an easy distance from the orifice. Nowadays, though, I work increasingly from home, at Cromer, in Norfolk. The family moved to Cromer in 2006, not long after the arrival of broadband.
At first, connectivity was achieved by small pieces of damp bailer twine loosely knotted together, but now it's a respectable 37 furlongs per fortnight.Easily enough to work seamlessly even when the family is looking at youtube videos, catching up with TV on the iPlayer and so on and so forth in like fashion.
When I made the move, my London-centric colleagues were aghast. We are required to do some air travel for work, and how was I going to do that once I'd cut the apron-strings to Heathrow? My reply was simple - Norwich International Airport.
They laughed - lots of unfunny and patronising metropolitan jokes about Sale-of-the-Century and Normal-for-Norfolk. But no longer.
Norwich has no queues. Sometimes, the person who gives you your boarding pass is the same as the one who checks it as you get on the plane.
Norwich airport has no pre-Heathrow traffic gridlock.
What's more, Norwich airport is less than an hour's flight to Amsterdam Schiphol, and from there, the world. Schiphol is a much nicer airport than Heathrow. Everything is all in one terminal, and perhaps because it's in Holland, everyone speaks perfect English.
And there is a gate at Schiphol (D6, for those interested) which is like a bus waiting room for KLM City Hopper planes to take you to just about any UK regional airport you can think of, from Bournemouth to Newcastle to Humberside to Exeter to Bristol, and, of course, Norwich.
They laughed - lots of unfunny and patronising metropolitan jokes about Sale-of-the-Century and Normal-for-Norfolk. But no longer.
Norwich has no queues. Sometimes, the person who gives you your boarding pass is the same as the one who checks it as you get on the plane.
Norwich airport has no pre-Heathrow traffic gridlock.
What's more, Norwich airport is less than an hour's flight to Amsterdam Schiphol, and from there, the world. Schiphol is a much nicer airport than Heathrow. Everything is all in one terminal, and perhaps because it's in Holland, everyone speaks perfect English.
And there is a gate at Schiphol (D6, for those interested) which is like a bus waiting room for KLM City Hopper planes to take you to just about any UK regional airport you can think of, from Bournemouth to Newcastle to Humberside to Exeter to Bristol, and, of course, Norwich.
The flight home, from Schiphol to Norwich, is so short, that, given the time difference between Britain and Europe, the ticket shows you landing five minutes before you take off.
In the past 13 years, I've had to travel from Heathrow no more than once or twice. If we want to build airport capacity, there are plenty of UK regional airports with much more space and fewer environmental concerns than Heathrow.
Honestly - Heathrow - who needs it?
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