Transport secretary Chris Grayling has suggested the new Heathrow runway could be built over the top of the M25.
The comments come as fresh evidence emerges from Highways England that surface access costs on the strategic road network (SRN) for Heathrow could run significantly higher than the Airports Commission suggested. (See image at bottom of page).
Chris Grayling
Mr Grayling suggested that building a ramp for the runway was cheaper and quicker than digging a tunnel for the busy motorway.
He told the BBC: ‘One of the things Heathrow has been looking at is doing what many other airports have done around the world, which is to build their runway over the top of the road rather than tunnelling the road underneath it.
‘It’s a cheaper and quicker way of doing it. And I of course am very concerned to make sure that as this runway is built it doesn’t cause massive disruption on the M25. So I think this is sensible way. It’s a gentle slope, it’s a hill, a very gentle hill up which the planes would take off rather than a flat surface and that’s what happens in many airports around the world.’
The news comes as documents released by the Department for Transport (DfT) revealed Highways England had suggested there were ‘significant potential for cost overruns’ on the largest highways schemes in relation to Heathrow’s third runway, such as the M4 widening work and the M25 tunnel plans.
Highways England revealed that the M25 scheme could cost between £476m and £1.1bn, and that the total cost of the SRN plans it would be involved in could run to £3.57bn around £600m more than the Airports Commission estimate.
There was also ‘substantial variance’ between the Airports Commission’s estimates of operation and maintenance costs for the Heathrow SRN proposals.
Highways England suggested the Commission’s figure of £334m ‘was 51% of our maximum range point of £657m over a 60-year assessment period’.
The Government-owned operator also noted the complexity of the SRN schemes for Heathrow, the challenge of delivering them on time and the impact of traffic management for the M25 tunnel option, which would cause 'travel disruption in an already heavily congested part of the network'.
The DfT stressed that all options, including the original tunnel idea, were under consideration.
Image from Highways England's report
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