The breaking news of the last couple of days has been the unveiling of the plans for a new airport in the Vale of White Horse. It is not the first time the idea has been floated but the scale of the current plans are vast. You can see the proposals by clicking here. The plans are for a four runway airport (twice as many as Heathrow currently has) with four passenger terminals. It would completely destroy the village of Garford and make villages like Lyford, Steveneton, Drayton and East and West Hanney almost uninhabitable. Not to mention the knock on effect to the wider area of the Vale such as Wantage, Grove and Abingdon. The plans have been submitted to the Government's Airport Commission which is looking at the expansion of airports in the South East of England. It seems pretty clear to me that the outcome of that commission (not due to report until after the 2015 General Election) is likely to be either expansion of existing airports or a new airport much closer to London than this (or a combination of the two). The way to utilise air transport to benefit the local economy is to improve transport links to existing hub airports. There are things that we are already campaigning for such as a direct rail link from Didcot to Heathrow and the much needed improvements to the A34. The plans call for huge transport infrastructure works - which on the face of it may seen like a benefit to some people - but the harm hugely outweighs this. The problem is that improving the transport network may be needed but adding 125 million passengers a year will soon wipe out the benefit of any improvements. In short the plans seem so impractical they are hardly worth worrying about. People will of course be concerned, but let's remember this is just the latest in a series of somewhat radical proposals for this site, including the reservoir and more recently Oxford Garden City. No-one promoting the site has been in contact with the council about it. There is no planning application, it is simply a proposal to the Government's commission and therefore speculative in the extreme. The Vale will be responding to the Commission in due course to register our formal objections.