Stuck in a holding pattern
Britain spends its infrastructure budget well—but doesn’t half take its time
EVERY airport suffers the odd delayed flight. In Britain, it is the runways that fail to arrive on time. No new full-length airstrip has been built to serve London since the second world war, as NIMBYs and tight budgets have scotched successive plans to increase airport capacity in the south-east: at Cublington in Buckinghamshire in the 1960s; at Foulness in the Thames Estuary and Gatwick, south of London, in the 1970s; and at Heathrow, to the west, in the 1990s and 2000s.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Stuck in a holding pattern”
From the December 19th 2015 edition
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