Heathrow Southern Railway boss slams airport’s ‘unambitious’ delivery plan

Stokes told New Civil Engineer that he was “very disappointed” by HAL’s delivery schedule which proposes opening a southern rail link to Heathrow in the mid-2030s.

Heathrow Southern Railway is a privately financed proposal for a southern rail link to Heathrow Airport and connects into High Speed 2 at Old Oak Common and runs through to Waterloo via Clapham Junction.

Stokes comments come after HAL revealed two potential delivery schedules for expansion as part of its Initial Business Plan that it submitted to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) last week.

Following guidance from the CAA, HAL has delayed opening the third runway from 2026 to 2028 under one proposed delivery schedule and 2029 under the second schedule.

The second, more expensive schedule involves spending an additional £3bn over the first 15 years including investing £750M each in western and southern rail links.

Under this proposal a western rail link would be completed in the mid-2020s ahead of the third runway opening, with a southern link scheduled to be completed in the mid-2030s.

Stokes, however, believes that “it is completely feasible” for both a western rail link and a southern rail link to open ahead of the third runway becoming operational.

“We are very disappointed at the lack of ambition in HAL’s business plan, especially on the timeline for opening a southern link,” Stokes told New Civil Engineer. “It is especially disappointing considering HAL has pushed back the opening of the third runway by up to three years.

“We are in no doubt that we could have a southern railway to Heathrow opened by the late 2020s, but we would have to get on with it now.”

Stokes added: “We don’t want to leapfrog the western scheme but we believe they should and could go through at the same time.

“That would allow for synergies between the two projects in terms of construction; areas of the airport would need to be closed off once rather than twice; perhaps there would be overlap to share tunnel boring machines. These kind of synergies could be explored in a more ambitious plan.”

A Heathrow spokesperson said: “We agree with the need for more direct rail links to Heathrow – that’s why we’ve proposed an additional £1.5bn in new funding for Western and Southern Rail as an option in the Initial Business Plan we released at the end of last year. We now need the Government to prioritise and progress these schemes as a matter of urgency and make the most of this opportunity to unlock regional growth and job creation in the UK.

"These schemes have the potential to reduce emissions from car journeys by making it easier for colleagues and passengers to travel to the airport sustainably. We’re currently consulting on the proposed investment and will submit a Final Business Plan to the CAA later this year.”

Stokes was also critical of the Department for Transport for failing to make a decision on rail links to Heathrow. The government ran a competition for privately funded railway ideas to Heathrow in June last year but is still to make a decision on what scheme it is taking forward.

New Civil Engineer understands that there are at least two schemes left in the running as part of the DfT's call for ideas; one tabled by the Heathrow Southern Railway consortium and another by Spelthorne Council.

At the end of 2018, it emerged that the government had rejected two of the Heathrow rail proposals, including a link to Windsor and the HS4Air scheme to connect Heathrow to Gatwick, High Speed 1 and High Speed 2.

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