a tale of two terminals
As Her Majesty snipped the blue ribbon, or lost the first suitcase, or whatever our Monarch was forced to go through whilst performing the opening ceremony at T-FIVE, as we sophisticates have learnt to call Terminal Five at Heathrow, I wonder if many pondered the course of this monstrous building, and compared it's progress with another similar, but very much larger structure many thousands of miles away?
As most will have read, or if living anywhere near the western side of London seen, the painful progress of the £4.3 Billion flagship of the B.A.A. empire, complete with integrated facilities for getting lost very quickly. We saw the headlines of the five-year long Planning enquiry, and then watched the birth pangs of the largest bicycle shed in the western world as it slowly rose into the tortured skyline which is our largest airport. We will no doubt read very shortly of the disasters which have yet to happen, from whole holds-full of luggage going to the wrong Continents, to a massed attack of frenzied passengers all trying to reach the exits at the same time.
In other words, a typical British shambles, camouflaged by a hurried inflation of the expected project costs and an embarrassing stretch of the original project timeline! But, even after all the delays, and cost overruns, and even Lord Foster being allowed to witter on about the "Experience of moving through T-Five" when all most want to do is get out of the damn place, I still kind of like it. I like it because it typifies all that Britain has to offer as we stumble on, smiling grimly despite all the problems, all the bureaucratic and democratic delays, all the lunatic problems and laws foisted on us by a truly Socialistic government which is only interested in Power for Power's sake! We got there in the end, and despite the fiendishly slow progress of construction; despite the fact that it is already out-of-date when it comes to passenger handling; despite all the things which will surely show up as being truly badly engineered and built, I think we've got a better AND MORE HUMAN deal that the people who were shovelled out of the way, whose dreams and homes were trampled into the dust, to build THIS!
Mike Cunningham
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Reader Comments (1)
Interestingly, both were designed by the same man - Norman Foster.
That we end up with what looks, from the air to be an over sized cattle shed, seems entirely appropriate, given our government's attitude to the population in general, while the Beijing terminal at least looks the part, managing to combine usefulness with style, in a very impressive way.
Yet again, we thought we were buying a Gucci and all we got was a 'knock-off! - so very NuLabour...
Another point, Beijing was finished early, in time and under budget. T5 was several years late, and vastly over budget.
I am sure that the people who - as the writer puts it, were 'shovelled out of the way, - would consider that a better deal than being left to live in the virtual 'decibel hell', that is now many square miles of West London.
Having previously lived some five miles from Heathrow, I was able to watch the continuous stream of aircraft, which at one minute intervals, unwound from the five tier holding stack, which was often sited over a large part of SE England.
The flying and air traffic skills just had to be marvelled at, and were of the highest standards, but I still wondered just how long it would be before there was a disaster of major proportions, as Heathrow is totally surrounded by urban and suburban built-up areas, with little space for any evasive action.
Now, of course, they are stumping for the addition of yet another runway, - utter and total madness!
Whatever pollution controls Livingstone may impose on London, the Heathrow air traffic will replace any emission based pollution saved, with ever increasing flights.
Heathrow is a cancer that will eventually defeat it's own purpose by making large parts of London so intolerable, as to be uninhabitable.