Transport Committee
Oral evidence: Scrutiny of the draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement, HC 482
Tuesday 15 September 2026
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 15 September 2026.
Transport Committee members present: Ruth Cadbury (Chair); Steff Aquarone; Dr Scott Arthur; Jacob Collier; Daniel Francis; Alex Mayer.
Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee member present: Ashley Dalton.
Questions 280–337
Witnesses
I: Steven Costello, Director, Heathrow Southern Railway Ltd; Elliot Shaw, Chief Customer and Strategy Officer, National Highways; Anthony Smith, Chair, Heathrow Area Transport Forum; Alex Williams, Chief Customer and Strategy Officer, Transport for London.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– Heathrow Southern Railway Ltd
– Heathrow Area Transport Forum
Witnesses: Steven Costello, Elliot Shaw, Anthony Smith and Alex Williams.
Q280 Chair: Welcome to the fourth session of our scrutiny of the Government’s draft Heathrow expansion national policy statement. I welcome Ashley Dalton MP, who is joining us as a guest from the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. We will be hosting two panels this afternoon. During the first we will hear about surface transport to and from Heathrow airport, and our second panel will explore the impacts of expansion on the local area and the planning policy aspects of the national policy statement. Could our first panel of witnesses please introduce themselves?
Steven Costello: I am Steven Costello, director of Heathrow Southern Railway Ltd, the private company that is promoting a privately financed railway into Heathrow.
Elliot Shaw: Good afternoon. I am Elliot Shaw, the chief customer and strategy officer at National Highways.
Anthony Smith: I am Anthony Smith, the chair of the Heathrow Area Transport Forum, which is a statutory committee that brings together all the stakeholders, including National Highways and others, who are interested in how people and cargo get to and from the airport.
Alex Williams: I am Alex Williams, the chief customer and strategy officer at Transport for London.
Q281 Chair: Transport for London was critical of the 2018 airports national policy statement—the last time the Government considered a third runway at Heathrow—saying that it failed to provide “a credible plan” for accommodating the additional surface trips caused by Heathrow expansion. Have the new draft HENPS and strategic vision now provided a credible plan? Heidi Alexander’s statement to the Commons said, in effect, that Heathrow expansion would have to prove that it could go ahead without turning the M25 and the M4 into a car park.
Alex Williams: I was at the Select Committee in 2017. I think you are probably quoting what I said, actually; it is quite interesting to have it quoted back to you eight or nine years on. Unfortunately, I think we are in a worse position, in some ways—a weaker position—than we were in 2017. I think there are missed opportunities to address that and to strengthen the document.
We are weaker in the sense that in the previous version, there was a commitment or an aspiration from Heathrow to get no extra traffic. That is gone. The reality is that even if you met all the mode share targets—and I do not believe they will be met—you are still looking at 60,000 trips every day on the highway network in that vicinity. You will hear from Elliot on this, but we know that the M4 and the M25 are some of the most congested roads in the country, and adding that congestion to that part of west London will have a material impact on the economy, the environment and how the area functions generally. So ditching the no extra traffic aspiration is a step backwards, and not having anything on staff travel is a step backwards.
I think they have missed an opportunity on how you get more out of the existing infrastructure—the Piccadilly line, the Elizabeth line and HEx—because they could do a lot to help in this space. On western and southern rail access, there is a recognition that we should look at them, but the language is too weak. I think it refers to “necessary” and “may” in describing those schemes—we would use the words “essential” and “required”. So unfortunately we have taken a step backwards.
There are steps forwards, though. The Elizabeth line has come into operation and is a tremendous success. ULEZ has had an effect in dealing with the air quality issues. On the Elizabeth line, it is interesting and worth reflecting that when I was here eight years ago, looking at the mode share, the percentage of trips to the airport by public transport was 39.7%. Now, eight years on, we are at 42%. That is on the back of the Elizabeth line, effectively, and other changes—an £18 billion project gets you 2%. If you look at what we have to do with the mode share, we have to get another 13% on top of that, so the scale of the challenge is enormous, in the context of the growth of the airport as well. While the Elizabeth line is a benefit, it puts into context that that is the kind of investment you need to get genuine change in mode shift, really. I think a lot of what we said before still stands, but unfortunately in certain areas we are going backwards.
Chair: Thank you. I will give the others an opportunity to add to Alex’s comments.
Anthony Smith: We think the draft statement and the strategic vision for surface access that accompanied it has some really good ambition in it about making public transport the first and natural choice for people going to and from the airport, minimising the impact on the road network, prioritising environmental sustainability, and rail playing a central role. There is great ambition and great hope in there. Unfortunately, it is not quite clear how all that is going to be delivered and who it is going to be delivered by. I think that is what’s missing, essentially—the sense of delivery, the targets being stretching enough, who is going to be responsible for various bits and who is going to pay. There is lots more detail to come.
As Alex has said, it is worth reminding ourselves of the current challenge. Unfortunately, there’s two sets of data around about access—the Civil Aviation Authority’s and Heathrow’s own data. Looking at Heathrow’s own data, currently about one in two people get to the airport by a vehicle of some sort: about 28% are coming by taxi and private car, which includes the unfortunately named kiss and fly, and parking is about 22%. A lot of people are reaching Heathrow by vehicles, which of course has an impact on the local communities as well.
The public transport mode share is about 48.4%, on Heathrow’s figures, which is a big increase since 2015—in the last 10 years—so it is very much heading in the right direction. But it underlines the scale of the challenge that if you are going to go for 50% or 55% public transport, as the statement envisages, you need some pretty serious public transport interventions to make that happen. Of course, you are trying to attract people from the west and the south, which is not such a dense market. London is an easier market to serve—it is denser and a more tourism-orientated market. There is a huge challenge in there.
There is lots to praise in the Government’s documents, but an awful lot of detail is needed to make it a reality.
Elliot Shaw: We have some thoughts similar to Anthony’s. When we look at the national policy statement, there is some really good ambition—we welcome the focus on surface transport, which is really good to see—but obviously the national policy statement itself sets out the criteria against which the promoter’s plans will be assessed. We will need to work with the promoters and see their plans in order to assess their deliverability. So that all needs to come. Our reflection is that it is early days at this point. There is lots of uncertainty and lots to work through, and we will need to do that as the plans come together.
Steven Costello: As Alex said, the HENPS uses words like “may”, “could” and “west and/or south”. We are pleased that the strategic vision effectively describes our scheme—through-running services from Paddington and Heathrow down to Hampshire and Surrey, the Elizabeth line to Staines, and the Waterloo service—but of course that strategic vision has no statutory weight, and the HENPS is really almost silent on what is needed.
The vision also suggests that “upgrades to public transport can be made in an appropriately phased manner.” This is where it really differs from the 2018 NPS, which assumed that new runway capacity would effectively be full within two years of a new runway opening. Instead, this is a phased proposal—hence the triggers at 116 million and 130 million—but it is surely impossible to treat rail schemes in a phased manner. You cannot just switch on a rail scheme as and when capacity starts to hit this, to be honest, rather strange metric of terminal capacity. It is not passenger numbers but a notional metric around floor space.
The reality in our view is that there are complexities and timescales to consider, and the only way we should consider them in the NPS is by recognising that it needs a single, co-ordinated and integrated approach to both western and southern. These are not railways that are empty; the railways to the north and south of the airport are busy.
Also, there are not just the timescales to secure the infrastructure to consider. Even though we have spent 10 years developing a scheme that is credible and very widely supported and deliverable, we think we still need eight years to go out and build it and commission it.
The other reason why we think you need to take an integrated approach is affordability. Neither of the promoters’ cost estimates for expansion include surface access, and affordability is, as you heard from the airlines, a crucial issue.
To summarise, we think that it is important, if not essential, to move beyond recognition and ambition, and instead provide firm policy support for an integrated western and southern scheme.
Q282 Chair: On additional surface trips, and to pick up on what Anthony said, I noted that somebody’s evidence said that kiss and drop, and particularly private hire and quite a lot of taxis, can be four trips, whereas somebody driving and parking is two trips. Does anybody’s modelling understand that distinction? Is it significant, and if not, should it be?
Anthony Smith: It probably should be, yes. Understanding the demand management side of all this is very important, because to a degree the relative attractiveness of public transport is to do with the cost and convenience of the alternatives. Therefore, the cost of a taxi, the cost of parking and the cost of drop-off fees are very important. At some stage we need to understand from the promoters what they are suggesting in those areas, in order to understand what the drivers towards public transport are going to be.
For a lot of people taking a taxi is a very obvious choice. For disabled passengers, if you have luggage or if you are only making one trip a year, it is worth shelling out £50 or whatever to get to the airport. If you are really going to shift people and give them an incentive to use public transport, there has got to be quite a dramatic shift in understanding how all those capacities can be used better, and how the price signals to consumers can be more effective.
Steven Costello: May I add a statistic? You are quite right that it is important to recognise the disconnect between passengers, which in turn includes interlining passengers who never go out of the airport. Our modelling shows that currently—or, in 2025—with 84.5 million total passengers going through Heathrow and a declining number of interlining passengers putting more stress on the surface access network, it generated around 165,000 vehicle trips a day, excluding Heathrow staff.
Q283 Alex Mayer: The CAA stats have something like 27% of people travelling by tube, metro, subway or tram. Is that the last mile bit? Are they from London and have just used that, or might they have come by some other form of transport and then got on the tube? Do we know whether that distinction is being captured?
Steven Costello: Is this the CAA surface access figures?
Alex Mayer: Yes.
Steven Costello: We believe it should capture all public transport.
Alex Williams: Yes, and they are saying it is now 42% by public transport.
Q284 Alex Mayer: Right. The public transport mode share targets remain very similar to those in the 2018 ANPS despite, as you have said, Heathrow making some progress towards those levels. Are the proposed targets in the HENPS achievable, and if so, are they sufficiently ambitious?
Alex Williams: It is interesting that it is the same numbers as before. They are different timelines, but it is still the 50%, going up to 55%. It is interesting that last time, in 2017, we asked, “What is the evidence base behind that?” Effectively, I think it is what Heathrow thought could be achieved, rather than any evidence base from the DFT. This time we have asked the same question, “What is the evidence base for 50% and 55%?” Again, I think it is just a straight rollover from last time, rather than there being a good analytical base to say what is needed. The challenge we have is that even if they hit that level of 55%, you are still looking at substantial increases in highway trips on the network: 60,000 vehicle movements a day, if they meet those targets.
To go back to your core question about whether they are achievable, my concern, which I think is probably shared by colleagues from Southern Rail, is the lack of commitment or requirement for the additional connectivity in respect of western and southern rail. The lack of a funding strategy means that those schemes may not actually happen. If they do not happen, you have very little chance of achieving those mode shift targets.
The other important thing in the HENPS is that it does not recognise the importance of doing more with your existing assets, like the Piccadilly line, the Elizabeth line and the Heathrow Express. In London, for the first 20 years of our existence we achieved big changes in mode shift. We did not build any new infrastructure for that; we sweated the existing assets. What I find a bit disappointing in the HENPS as drafted is that it is silent on what more you can do on the existing assets. And you can do a lot. You could do the signalling on the Piccadilly line and that would substantially increase—
Chair: Eventually!
Alex Williams: Well, the new fleets are coming. Four trains are in London being tested. They will come next year, but you do not get the maximum benefits unless you do the signalling there. You could more on the Elizabeth line. We have five more trains coming, and that will help in that regard, because you get four trains an hour to T5. But the converse is true on the Heathrow Express route, which has a reducing ridership and is taking up valuable paths that are not actually well used. There is a way of repurposing that to be more affordable and more attractive, and carry more public transport users.
To achieve that you have to do two things: capacity, which is sweating your existing assets, and connectivity, which is the new infrastructure that we have talked about before. As drafted, it is too weak on both of those issues.
Chair: That was really interesting, Alex, but we have a lot to get through and we need to keep responses succinct, please.
Alex Mayer: Anthony, do you want to add to that?
Anthony Smith: Any target is potentially achievable: if you invest enough in the thing and the alternatives are sufficiently unattractive, you will drive people towards using public transport, or attract them even better towards using public transport.
The piece of the jigsaw we are missing at the moment is: what are the rail schemes that are going to do the heavy lifting to deliver all these extra passengers to the airport? These are very significant numbers of extra passengers. Until the Government declare their hand, in a sense, about which rail schemes they are behind and are supporting, it is very difficult to see how the whole jigsaw fits together. Ultimately, the Government are going to have to say, “Yes, what’s being proposed fits in with the national rail network, and with the emergence of Great British Railways and its increased role in transport, rail access and planning.” We need to know what the Government are going to do. In theory, the answer is yes, but we need more detail.
Steven Costello: If I may say so, there is a simple solution. West and south need rail access. Heathrow says that, and we are very pleased that Heathrow supports our scheme. The HENPS actually describes our scheme. For us, it is a simple click over the ratchet for the NPS to support the western and southern rail schemes that we propose, which can be privately financed and brought forward before these, in effect, cliff-edge targets hit. Otherwise, you are expecting an airport operator to anticipate by eight to 10 years when it is going to hit these metrics—116 million and 130 million—and then hope that, at that time, there is rail network capacity, fleet and all of that available to implement. It would be much better to do it now and turn that ambition into reality.
Elliot Shaw: From a highways perspective—other colleagues are better placed to talk about the deliverability of public transport schemes—we would expect, through the DCO process, the promoter to build confidence that there is a credible plan and then understand the knock-on impact for the highways.
There is an awful lot of uncertainty around the numbers at the moment. There is a wide variety of potential numbers around highways trips. That is going to depend on things like vehicle occupancy rates and passenger transfer rates—how many people are actually going out of the airport. We then need to understand the distribution of that: where it is impacting on the network, the timing and so on. There is a lot more work to do to understand the impact of that and what mitigations are necessary, and you would expect that to come through the DCO process.
Q285 Alex Mayer: Alex, what is stopping TfL doing the work on using existing capacity better? Why do you have to wait for the Government to point you in that direction?
Alex Williams: We are doing some of that work. Piccadilly line trains are coming—four trains are being tested, and we have an order for the fleet to come in—and there are 10 trains coming on the Elizabeth line, which will increase the frequency to Heathrow. We are doing our bit, but you need to do more to deal with the huge increase in demand that you will get from Heathrow expansion. Signalling on the Piccadilly line is a key part of that, as is investigating what more you can do on the Elizabeth line. As I say, the Heathrow Express is an underused asset, and it is within the Government’s gift to make a decision on that. The biggest part of this is the Piccadilly line signalling, which does require money. That is the reality of it.
Q286 Alex Mayer: Is the draft HENPS clear about what will happen if public transport mode share targets are not met? Steven, you are shaking your head, so we will start with you.
Steven Costello: It is in contrast with Gatwick’s DCO, where there is clear conditionality.
Alex Mayer: Does anyone have anything to add?
Anthony Smith: Same—it is not clear what will happen.
Alex Williams: It is interesting that the Gatwick DCO was approved by the current Secretary of State; I find it a bit odd that that conditionality is missing from the HENPS. Further measures to ensure that it happens are really important.
Q287 Chair: Is a problem with our system that the DCO for a third runway will be just for what is within the perimeter, which the promoters will provide, and that the process does not allow for any other infrastructure outside the perimeter to be included in that DCO? It would have to be a separate DCO or another planning process. Is that correct?
Alex Williams: I think so. What I would say, though, is that that adds weight to the importance of the HENPS getting it right. It is fine to have two separate consents. For example, with the Northern line extension to Battersea power station, we had a planning decision for the power station and a separate decision for the underground. They were connected by a Grampian condition that required it, but we had a very clear planning framework in which the two went together. This planning framework is not clear enough in my view.
Q288 Chair: Could it be?
Alex Williams: That is why I think the language is important. Rather than saying that it “may include” these projects, it should say that they are required.
Q289 Chair: If it did say that, even though Heathrow Airport Ltd or Heathrow West Ltd do not operate and are not rail authorities, you could have a decision making that an absolute prerequisite for opening and running a third runway.
Alex Williams: From a planning perspective, you have something called a Grampian condition. It basically says that it is not within the direct control of the applicant, but they cannot deliver the scheme until this other element has been delivered. I would use that principle, although I do not know how that would work with the DCO. That mechanism works from a planning perspective. You would not have got the Northern line extension without it, to be honest. It increases your leverage. You could increase your leverage over Heathrow by saying, “Actually, this is essential. You need to put your hand in your pocket.”
Steven Costello: The HENPS does talk about the applicants—plural, perhaps—needing to bring forward a credible plan. In the interests of trying to present solutions rather than problems, our intention is to bring forward a transport and works Act application, in any case. When we started HSR, it was on the basis of a viable, deliverable and privately financeable scheme, with current two-runway capacity. It is certainly our intention to bring that forward next year, which is welcomed by Heathrow.
Q290 Chair: If it were conditioned, would it be conditioned within the DCO? Would there be in the HENPS some kind of expectation that was stronger than the current language?
Alex Williams: Yes, but the other thing this leads to is the funding conversation. Part of the problem with the western and southern rail schemes is that the former Chancellor ruled out recourse to the public purse. Heathrow are saying they will make a contribution, and DFT is saying in here that it should make a contribution. There is a big gap there. From my perspective, it worries me that that gap will not be filled and the schemes will not happen. This uncertainty about funding leads us to believe that maybe those schemes will not happen.
Q291 Chair: Do you mean that the third runway could go ahead but the rail schemes not happen?
Alex Williams: Because there is not funding certainty. To my mind, there is no route to fund those schemes at the moment. The HENPS should help you in that regard, in the way it did for the Northern line extension or the Barking Riverside extension.
Chair: Thank you. It is useful to get all of that on the record.
Steven Costello: If I may, we do have a funding proposal.
Chair: Yes, I am aware that you have a funding proposal.
Q292 Dr Arthur: Alex, I will ask you a leading question, if that is okay, because it will save us a bit of time. About 80,000 people work at Heathrow airport. The 2018 plan had a mode share target just for the staff, with the staff travel plan coming in. The current plan—the HENPS—does not have a mode share target, does it? Is that good enough?
Alex Williams: You want me to be brief, so I will say no. The other context is that the employee base is going to grow, isn’t it?
Q293 Dr Arthur: Many of them are low-paid staff, of course, in some posts—that is an important consideration.
Alex Williams: This is the omission, really. Not having a workplace target is an omission in my view. Often in the planning process, you would refer to a travel plan for this, and that is not even referenced. The fact on staffing numbers is that there is not a target, but there is significant growth with expansion. I think that is an error and an omission. I do not understand why it is not there. We were suggesting combining the two so that there would be an overarching target for passengers and staff.
Q294 Dr Arthur: Getting that right makes it easier for them to recruit staff to work in those positions.
Alex Williams: Yes.
Q295 Dr Arthur: Thinking more broadly, we have heard a lot about trains, particularly from Steven. Another part of the jigsaw is buses and, for Alex’s benefit, coaches. Is there enough in the current plan to think about how bus and coach services will connect to the site, thinking about the road network and the site itself?
Alex Williams: For one, we have invested a lot in buses to the airport through the Superloop network, which is well received and well used. To be fair to Heathrow, I think they are looking at improvements to the bus services in the area, because I think they recognise the employment—
Q296 Dr Arthur: But is there enough in the plan for the expansion?
Alex Williams: I think there could be more there. To be fair to them and DFT, I think there is a recognition that the bus has an important role to play, particularly if you think about this as a 24-hour operation. A lot of the buses start very early in the morning to deal with the shift patterns that they have. On coaches, it is also a really important catchment if you think about those coming from Oxford or Reading. In the absence of rail connectivity, coach has a big role to play. The coach facility at Heathrow is, I think, the largest in the UK after Victoria, so I think there is a recognition of the importance there. I probably need to have another look at whether you could do more there, but, to be fair to them, I think they recognise that that is an important mode that they need to protect to serve the airport going forward.
Q297 Dr Arthur: Overall, in terms of getting the modal shift just right, is it enough just to invest in bus and coach connections—as well as train connections—or should we be putting restrictions on the scale of parking in and around the site? Obviously, that is an important income source for the airport—about £200 million a year just now—but should we be constraining the site on parking? We do that with other applications, do we not?
Alex Williams: We do. At the moment, we have 21,000 parking spaces in Heathrow, and we are looking to go to 36,000—some of the largest car parks in western Europe. They will be very near the road network. The concern is that the scale of increase in demand is counter to the modal shift targets. If you make it easier for people to park very near a terminal, with immediate access from the motorway network, and improve that convenience, how will you encourage them to get on the train?
There is also a contrast between all the highway assets. The car park and the M25 are all fully paid for. None of them the public transport products is committed in terms of funding, other than the stuff that we are doing on Picc line trains, so although I think public transport first is a nice statement, in reality the funding is principally there for the road infrastructure and getting there by car.
Q298 Dr Arthur: You are looking restless, Anthony, as we talk about car parks.
Anthony Smith: It always makes me nervous. I think it is a very good point about staff. Currently about half the staff at Heathrow do not work for Heathrow, so it has much more limited control over them. About one in two people come in by car. It is a tough nut to crack with the staff because, to a degree, it forms an attractive part of the proposition for employers. If you have come off shift at three in the morning, do you want to wait at a bus stop or get in your own warm car? But it generates an awful lot of traffic and needs thinking about.
The amount of car parking and the relative cost of it is crucial. As I said before, this whole debate needs to be thought about very carefully. Bus and coach are really important. Yes, they have a lot of lifting to do in and around the local communities. Coach has been relatively successful, I think, and Heathrow, to its credit, has invested quite a lot in the bus network around the airport as well, with good success. With sustained funding and good advertising, it is starting to build up some quite good traffic. That just needs to be massively sustained and grown, although sometimes people say, “The last thing I want outside my house at three in the morning is a bus idling”, so there is an interesting tension with the local communities there. Bus and coach have a lot to do in this.
Q299 Dr Arthur: Everyone wants to be near a bus stop, but they do not want it right outside their door. Do you support the idea of capping parking provision on site as well, but perhaps with a separate limit for staff?
Anthony Smith: I think it will naturally have a limit, but how that impacts the affordability of the overall schemes and the availability of funding for public transport is very interesting. There is a whole debate here about potentially hypothecating some of these income streams for public transport so that people know there is going to be quite a lot of car parking, but all the income for that will go towards clear public transport schemes. There is lots more debate there.
Elliot Shaw: From our perspective, we need to understand all the trips that are on the road. I agree that it is about passengers, but it is also about staff. Freight, particularly during construction, will be important as well in terms of parking. I think that should be set out within the wider context of the transport plans. It is about how all that comes together. We would expect the promoter to pull all that together in their modelling.
Q300 Chair: On local buses, a local resident said that the free bus scheme for the airport’s immediate environment, which local residents benefited from, was paused during covid and is still not back up and running. Is that correct?
Anthony Smith: That is correct, yes.
Q301 Chair: Do we know why?
Anthony Smith: Funding, presumably.
Q302 Chair: But the airport funded that?
Anthony Smith: Yes. It would be very attractive to reintroduce it.
Alex Williams: They have an income stream with the drop-off charge that could be used for this purpose.
Steven Costello: I do not want you to think that we are obsessed with rail only. Our modelling looks at the whole picture. In its July 2025 submission to Government, Heathrow said that increasing public transport mode share targets is not possible through bus and coach alone. Local bus is very strong for staff. It can serve much more discrete local markets and get people closer to the workplace, but coaches just are going to be on the same overcapacity bits of the road network that everybody else is.
On terminal drop-off charge, what Alex says is right, and we are pleased that the vision supports hypothecation, as do TfL and HATF. It was always intended that the drop-off charge should be used to fund sustainable surface access. Alex spoke earlier about how you make mode share tick up with new heavy rail. It is interesting that history shows that increasing the terminal drop-off charge does not move the dial at all on mode share.
Dr Arthur: We were out visiting the local authority, and it said it thought originally that the drop-off charge was hypothecated but that it had not been connected through.
Chair: Let us move on to specifics of the rail schemes, although some of the questions may have already been answered.
Q303 Jacob Collier: Steven, you said that you cannot just switch on a rail scheme. The HENPS and the strategic vision talk about requiring a credible plan for any future rail enhancement. What do you think that would look like?
Steven Costello: I think you know what we are going to say—it is our scheme. When we say that we have spent 10 years developing it, people sort of look a bit askance. It is because we started by looking all the way back to 1957 and Sir Alfred Bossom’s monorail and all the various schemes that many of you will be familiar with, most recently things such as Airtrack, the mayor’s scheme and SWELTRAC. We wanted to examine the reasons why they had failed. Heathrow is unique among huge airports in just being at the end of a branch line. We found that it was a mixture of local impacts, things such as level-crossing barrier downtime, cost, journey times not being competitive with road but also affordability.
The sweet spot that we have settled on is a scheme that is a very short piece of new railway that is almost all tunnelled so that there is very little surface access or community impact. It is relatively cost efficient and is an efficient piece of design. Although we do not specify the services that should operate over the infrastructure, because that is not in our gift, we have modelled three service patterns, and they attract both airport and non-airport users. Even on a two-runway business case, it has a very compelling financial business case, but also a very high benefit-cost ratio and even higher wider economic benefits.
We think that is the credible plan, and we are pleased that Heathrow support it. It is not as if we have plucked something out of the air; it is a scheme that has been engineered, costed, independently validated and tested. As well as bringing forward an application, the next step for us is that we are pleased to have support for what we call a “senior reference group that pulls together the various agencies and actors that control the various bits of the puzzle needed to bring this together.
Q304 Jacob Collier: On western rail access, we have had written evidence from Hillingdon that the land originally required for construction is no longer available under the third runway masterplan. Is western rail access actually deliverable if Heathrow expansion does go ahead?
Steven Costello: When we started, although we are called Heathrow Southern Railway, we always took the view that you need an integrated approach to both western and southern access. You cannot abandon one corridor to be reliant on road. I think the scheme you are talking about was originally known as “WRATH” and then became “Western Rail Link to Heathrow”. That was abandoned in 2021. It was a scheme that simply linked terminal 5 to the Great Western main line, heading in a north-westerly direction. The problem with that was twofold. One, it was very expensive, and it only had any utility for airport passengers. Also, it assumed use of the Heathrow Express train paths—that the trains that come out of Paddington along the Great Western would go through Heathrow and then carry on up to Reading. That effectively precludes any southern scheme from serving Hampshire and Surrey, as we do. You end up with two shuttle services each side of Heathrow, which is a waste of that very valuable Great Western capacity, which TfL recognises.
We have developed an alternative scheme, which I will not go into detail on, but it is cheaper and delivers the same or greater benefits. It is useful to non-airport passengers, so it still provides that very important western access, but in an integrated way with the southern one.
Q305 Jacob Collier: Alex, what rail enhancements does TfL need to see?
Alex Williams: As I said earlier, we believe that there is one on capacity improvements of existing assets, and another on connectivity. We very much believe that some form of those western and southern rail schemes is needed. The HENPS recognises that, although we think that that language should be strengthened.
One thing I would add to what Steve said is to look at the contrast with where we were in 2017. In 2017, NR and DFT had teams working on both those projects. We got close to a TWA application for western rail, and there were teams looking at private financing for southern rail.
Now you do not have clear accountability about who is leading on that. There is no one in DFT working on it, as far as I know. NR has not responded to this consultation; it transitioned to GBR. There is an issue about who is picking up and running with those schemes. Steve and his team are advocates for them, but frankly, it should be a public body that leads and runs with them. That ambiguity is not helpful when everyone here is saying those schemes are essential, and we have a funding challenge as well.
That is where we have stepped backwards from 2017: there is no clear leader or resource leader. Those are complicated schemes, and you need a lot of work to get the evidence base for the consent to get them over the line. At the moment, no one is leading them.
Anthony Smith: I think your question is also very relevant because of the timing of all this. The expansion statement and the targets should support and enable the expansion. That means the public transport alternatives need to be there relatively early, so that people start using them and embedding the habit early. If you are trying to shift people out of cars in 20 years’ time, when you have 130 million passengers, it is harder, harder, harder. The point about the credible plan is really also to do with timing and getting the alternatives in place.
Steven Costello: We could write to the Committee afterwards to expand on Alex’s concern, because we are working with DFT, the Treasury, Network Rail and others.
Q306 Chair: Okay, thank you. My question is about the matrix of potential future and existing rail and underground lines, and so on. All are coming in and out of the existing airport and terminals. That means those terminals—terminal 5, terminal 4 and the central terminal area—have to link to the new infrastructure. Does that present physical challenges? Has either promoter provided you with an adequate explanation of how passengers and staff will move between the existing airport and what is effectively a new airport to the north?
Steven Costello: We are working closely with promoters. It is important on terminal 5 to recognise that, in a great piece of foresight, there is the passive provision for two new platforms and the tunnels extending out. The CTA station is constrained, but our starting point was that Heathrow’s own network and the wider rail network are both constrained. We cannot just drop extra trains on.
Q307 Chair: All those links are currently underground, and you will have many more passengers moving through them.
Alex Williams: We have not got into the detail of that. To be fair to them, I think they would be up for that kind of conversation.
Q308 Chair: Is there a shortage of space for that increase in passengers?
Alex Williams: Potentially, yes. That is something we have to look at. There is also a secondary debate about construction because this will not be a quick scheme; it is going to be a long time. If you think about how long T5 took—
Chair: Do you have anything to add, Anthony?
Anthony Smith: Only that more detail is needed. You are quite right that the scale of this is immense, and a lot of it will be underground. But there are some big questions about things like the southern road access tunnel. Will it have a bus priority lane? Will it have provision for cycling? Active travel is very poorly provided for at the moment, just because of the way the airport has grown over the years. I think everybody would like to see staff in particular having more choice to be able to cycle.
Chair: We must move on, but thank you. On the impact on the traffic and road networks, I will bring in Scott.
Q309 Dr Arthur: Back in 2018, the airports NPS said that Heathrow should “continue to strive to meet its public pledge” for airport-related traffic to be “no greater than today”. “Continue to strive” is hardly a high benchmark, but—
Alex Williams: It has gone.
Dr Arthur: Yes, I was trying to articulate that—you have done it for me.
Alex Williams: It has gone, and I think that is why it is a step backwards.
Q310 Dr Arthur: So the question is, do you think as planned that Heathrow can expand without a big increase in road traffic access? Is that why it has gone?
Alex Williams: If you do go for that target of no extra traffic, you are substantially increasing the demand on the public transport network, even more than the 55%. You are looking at a mode share target of around 66%; I think it is of that order. But I think it is a step backwards to get rid of that aspiration. I get that it was a kind of Heathrow aspiration, rather than a requirement.
Dr Arthur: It was just an aspiration; it was not a firm, legally binding target.
Alex Williams: It was the right thing to aim for because if you think about how congested the road network is around there—they are some of the most congested motorways in the country—and if you are effectively now accepting that traffic will increase substantially on those roads, you have a big problem, and you have a big economic impact and a big environmental impact. So I think it is a step backwards. It is not there.
Q311 Dr Arthur: I guess what I am trying to build up to is rather than just a mode share target, a percentage, should we have an absolute target for vehicles accessing the site? Elliot, you are shaking your head—I thought I had a great idea there.
Elliot Shaw: I think it is more complicated than that. From our perspective, we want credible plans for how any additional traffic will be managed and mitigated. The worry would be, if you have an uncredible aspiration such as that, whether it leads to less credible plans. From our perspective, effectively what we really want to see is to understand where the promoter is thinking that there will be additional traffic. They need to demonstrate that there is capacity on the network or that they are going to create that additional capacity to enable that. I think just a single number is not sufficient because it all depends where and when that traffic will take place.
Q312 Dr Arthur: I am going to jump on your use of the word “credible”. You are right: it might not be credible for me to suggest that there should be this absolute target, but is it credible to propose this and for it to come with a huge increase in traffic—not just access to the site, but on all the roads leading to the site?
Elliot Shaw: That is why we have to work it through. As I say, it depends on occupancy rates and transfer rates, where that traffic is going to be and, again, how all those public transport plans come together, and that will influence where the traffic is. I reflect that obviously Gatwick—it is a different scale—has just gone through the DCO. We have worked with them. There is a significant increase in traffic going to that. It is about understanding traffic patterns and the mitigations that are going to be put in place. Heathrow, through the construction, will increase capacity, so we need to understand where that will be and, actually, whether that will have an impact, so there is lots to work through.
Q313 Dr Arthur: So that is like car access. Obviously, going through the construction process, there will be lots of vehicles arriving on the site—big ones causing a lot of disruption. Then, once the site is developed, there will probably be more freight and servicing vehicles accessing the site as well. That is almost unavoidable. We could limit car access, but there will be more of those vehicles.
Alex Williams: A 50% increase in freight, yes.
Q314 Dr Arthur: Is there enough in the plan to accommodate that and the impacts on the wider community?
Elliot Shaw: That freight side is important. As we were saying, obviously there is a lot of focus on passengers at the moment, but in the same way you were talking about staff, understanding that freight shift is important, as you say, both through construction and then afterwards. Particularly in construction, this will take place over a long period, and just from the highways perspective, there is quite a lot of different elements to it in whichever promoter we go through. Understanding the phasing of that, how it comes together and the mitigation plans around it is important.
Q315 Dr Arthur: So you think we need more detail on that before a decision could be made?
Elliot Shaw: Yes, absolutely. The promoters’ plans need to set all that out in detail.
Anthony Smith: I think the word “credible” is a powerful one, because the Government is, in a sense, challenging the two promoters to say, “Right, get your thinking caps on. How on earth is this going to work?” Because even if we have lost the no more traffic pledge, the whole statement is peppered with words like “mitigate” and so on, so it is a very strong challenge on the traffic front. The promoters will need to really step up to show how that is going to be delivered both within the perimeter and beyond, because Heathrow casts a very long shadow around the whole region and beyond, so that credibility has to be pretty high.
Q316 Dr Arthur: I think Alex is saying that the challenge is not strong enough. Do you think it is? Sorry to put words in your mouth, Alex.
Alex Williams: No, you are right. I think it needs to be firmer.
Anthony Smith: Let us see what the promoters come up with. But it is a very, very strong challenge, and even reaching 50% and 55% is pretty epic stuff.
Steven Costello: Just to put a slightly contrary point of view, I have some sympathy for Heathrow—both promoters and airlines—because in no other country in the world is the airport expected to manage and develop its surface access. Of course, affordability—apart from credibility—is a huge issue here.
Chair: The point of the national policy statement is to define the criteria against which expansion is needed, and that is what we are trying to pin down in this inquiry. You make an important point: if it is needed, somebody has to provide it.
Q317 Jacob Collier: The draft NPS states that “the promoter must pay for the full cost of works” to the road networks. But we know that with cost overruns, sometimes the taxpayer has to pick up the tab. Do you think that there are potential costs that might come to the taxpayer, the Government or any of the third parties that have not been potentially accounted for?
Alex Williams: On public transport access, I am certain it will. A good example of that is that we negotiated a contribution from Heathrow for the Elizabeth line, and that was reduced by the CAA because they are in a regulated asset framework where they pushed down what was required to be paid. I think that you have a disconnect between what Heathrow might be prepared to offer and what the CAA will accept, with the Government saying that there is no recourse to the public purse. I really do not know how you square that circle on the public transport side. On the road side, I think it is more straightforward, because my impression is that Heathrow will pay for what is needed—I may be wrong on that.
Elliot Shaw: I think so. Again, the NPS sets that out; that would be our expectation, and that would be similar in terms of any cost overruns—we would largely expect Heathrow to undertake much of the construction on the road side. Ultimately, it would be for them if there are any overruns there.
Anthony Smith: Inevitably, the public sector is going to get involved in this somehow, whether it is directly in terms of making provision for, say, increasing capacity on the Great Western Main Line, which also benefits access to Heathrow, or rail fares needing to be hypothecated in the future to allow the funding of some of these schemes. I think that at some point the public sector will get involved.
Steven Costello: For our scheme, we are absolutely clear that there is no cost or risk to the public purse, subject to the policy framework providing an investable pathway for private finance. We would be pleased to expand on that to the Committee.
Q318 Jacob Collier: I suppose that Heathrow is saying to us that there won’t be any cost to the taxpayer, but ultimately, what you are saying, Alex, is that there could be because we need rail enhancement for the future, which at the moment is not accounted for.
Alex Williams: Yes. Just look at the Elizabeth line example: they offered something and it was pushed down, so the DFT filled the gap, and that was quite modest compared with what we are looking at here.
Q319 Daniel Francis: Following that, on the rail side, what funding models do you think would be appropriate, and—this is particularly for Steven—could you outline the model that you would be putting forward for your scheme?
Steven Costello: When we say “an investable pathway”, we are looking at a model of a senior reference group, which is supported by Heathrow. We are in discussion with DFT and other agencies on this. It is using the Thames Tideway model, where the Government provide what we might call a support package. It is not money, but it is a supportive package that can attract private finance. For instance, we can build the infrastructure and take the risk on that, but we cannot take usage risk. We would need a commitment that a minimum quantum of trains would operate over it for a defined period. With that, that is then a privately financeable scheme.
On the CAA contribution, Alex is right. We are waiting for the CAA to launch a consultation on its surface access policy. We are hoping that that might pay greater attention to the environmental duty that the CAA has, because surface access is responsible for around 40% of aircraft emissions in the landing and take-off cycle, so it is a huge contributor. We would also be looking for a hypothecation of terminal drop-off, and possibly a levy on car parking charges. With that framework, it is investable and financeable and there would be no risk or cost to the public purse.
Q320 Daniel Francis: Can you go into a bit more detail about the Thames Tideway model? I am a London MP. The company involved in that is potentially at risk of insolvency and other issues. Would there be a risk?
Steven Costello: It was set up as a completely separate company—Bazalgette Tunnel. I would rather write to you afterwards, if I may, because I do not want to get into the weeds on numbers. We have a very clear proposition. It does need the HENPS to set out an investable pathway. It would be helpful if it specified the Heathrow Southern Railway scheme. It would certainly be helpful if it required an integrated approach to western and southern, and that it supported the senior reference group, although we think we are on the way to delivering that anyway. It was much easier delivering Heathrow Express, because it was two nationalised entities: BAA, as was, and British Rail came together. Now, it is a much more fragmented picture, but we are optimistic that we can bring all those agencies together to deliver this.
Q321 Daniel Francis: Does anyone else have a comment on the appropriateness of that model?
Alex Williams: My take is that the CAA framework for the airport is not fit for purpose in an expansion world. It works for maintaining and improving an existing asset. For the scale of investment required—£30 billion or £40 billion—I just do not think that regulated framework works. It is interesting that the Government are looking at that. It will be interesting to see what changes they propose with that.
I agree with the point about hypothecation and trying to take out some revenue streams from the regulated asset base so that they can fund public transport, but we also need to get real. You are going to need some public money to do this. I really do not see how, in the current state of affairs, you could get the proper investment in surface access to deliver those mode shift targets without some public money to go with it. They are all dancing around it, but the reality is that you are going to need that.
Anthony Smith: And the benefits of the public transport improvement spread way beyond Heathrow. Presumably, things like land values around the airport will go up as a result of all this investment, which means that business rates could be a source of finance, as we saw on Crossrail and the Northern line extension. Air passengers are not the only people who are going to be able to pay for this; otherwise, it is not going to work.
Q322 Dr Arthur: I was going to ask about this. We are talking about Heathrow funding everything, but the reality is—as you already mentioned about these bus services that no longer operate—that there will be wider benefits for investing in these rail links like your own. Not everybody will be going to Heathrow. People will be going to other places. We are all agreed that perhaps Heathrow should not be paying for it all now, and perhaps those other beneficiaries could be paying for some of that capacity.
Alex Williams: A good example of that is the Piccadilly line. That goes up to Upminster in east London. There is no way that we could expect Heathrow to pay for signal improvements in Upminster in east London. Paying a contribution is the right thing to look at.
Dr Arthur: Somehow proportionate to their benefit.
Alex Williams: Exactly. That is the debate to be had, but we need to find funding for the other bit that would not be in their contribution. That is where relying on public funding is probably going to happen.
Steven Costello: But for us, the support framework, which only Government can provide, is in lieu of capital funding.
Chair: I am conscious of time, so we need to move on.
Q323 Jacob Collier: We have touched a bit on the sequencing of the project and the delivery. How confident are you that airport expansion can be successfully sequenced alongside potential rail and road projects—surface access projects—in the planning and delivery phases?
Elliot Shaw: First, it is very early. As part of the DCO process, we would absolutely want to see the construction plans and the details there. There is a lot of work. Looking at it from a highways perspective, whichever promoter takes it forward, there are several different elements to it, so getting that phasing right is important. Subject to that, I do not see a reason why we could not work with any promoter to try to work it through and successfully manage the construction.
Alex Williams: I would say that we should aim to get the rail projects in before expansion, and I do not think that is the case at the moment. Anthony made a very valid point about needing to change travel habits, and you cannot do that if the rail projects do not exist. I would turn it on its head: rather than saying, “How far can we expand before you do the rail projects?”, they should get them in earlier and establish the travel patterns and trip behaviours. That will help deliver expansion going forward.
It feels to me that the debate is how far we can expand before looking at improved rail access, and that is the wrong way of looking at it. You should seek to get that in place, and get the passenger demand and change of behaviour now, because that gets you your mode shift target. Doing it as late as possible is not the way to do it.
Q324 Jacob Collier: Do you think that should be in place before Parliament consents to going ahead with expansion?
Alex Williams: I think you need a mobiliser team, which does not exist at the moment, and you need to really get going on it and see how fast you can deliver both of those projects. On big planning applications like the Northern line extension, they could not do the development until there was consent for it. You can require that sequencing, but it has not been adequately thought through at the moment. It feels to me that it is about how far Heathrow can go on expansion, rather than thinking about how we get the infrastructure in as quick as we can.
Anthony Smith: I do not think we can wait until we have 130 million passengers a year to then start thinking about the local rail schemes and telling the local residents, “We are coming back next week to start digging the rail tunnels.” It has to be sequenced very carefully. It is a huge amount of work in quite a constricted area. The phasing and planning will be world class, and we can do it in this country, but this will be a challenge.
Chair: Oh, can we?
Q325 Daniel Francis: How realistic are the proposals for the road network, particularly around the M25? Is there a risk that transport users will experience issues with disruption across the road and rail network at the same time?
Elliot Shaw: As I say, the plans are early-stage at the moment. We would be looking for the promoters to come forward with the detail of it so that we can assess it. Among both promoters that we have seen at the moment, there are significant works there. They are all credible works, and we would expect to work through that detail with them.
In terms of managing the traffic, we would expect them to come up with detailed construction plans that demonstrate the phasing. As we have said, there is a lot of work, which will come over a prolonged period of time. We would look for the promoters to set out how they would mitigate that.
A good thing is that quite a lot of it is offline. There is a lot of talk about the M25, but big chunks of it are off the main network, and that enables us to potentially mitigate some of the disruption. But as Anthony said, there is still a huge amount of work to do, so getting the world-class plans and sequencing will be really important.
Alex Williams: There is a huge amount to do through the consenting process with the construction management plan for the whole airport. It will take a couple of decades to do this, so you need to work through that detail. I agree with Elliot that there is the start of a debate with Heathrow on that, but there is much more to do in that space.
Anthony Smith: I do not think that things are always quite as simple as building things offline and dropping the last bolt in over a weekend with nobody noticing that it all happens. This is complex stuff, although HS2 is quite interesting because of the amount of work that is being done away from the rail network and away from the road network. That might provide some clues as to what is going on. The avoidance of the joint disruption is going to be absolutely key, because otherwise people are going to start to ask whether it is really worth it.
Steven Costello: It is a reason for bringing rail forward quickly, both because there is an interface west of terminal 5 in physical construction terms, and in terms of material by rail and getting waste out.
In terms of the wider conditionality, it is very important that the HENPS is fit for purpose because it will endure for decades. We are working on the basis that Heathrow, as it currently exists, will be the owner and operator. But in decades to come, it could be a very different entity, and it could be an entity that chooses to sweat assets or to maintain this notional capacity just below 116—or just below 130 million—to avoid ticking over to these triggers. It has to be fit for purpose and create the credible plan, deliverable framework and investable pathway for us from day one.
Q326 Chair: Elliot, there is a risk that the lower Thames crossing will still be under construction when this work is done, and then you have the added pressure on Gatwick, assuming that they have their second runway by then. What are the implications for the M25 if that were to happen?
Elliot Shaw: There is some interaction, but we do not think that it is huge.
Q327 Chair: You have done the modelling on that?
Elliot Shaw: No. Again, we would expect Heathrow’s modelling to demonstrate it.
Chair: You run the SRM, so I just wondered.
Elliot Shaw: We have not seen. Again, we would need the promoters’ proposals at Heathrow to understand what they are planning and then we can look at that in the round. Obviously, we understand the lower Thames crossing much more. Again, the positive with the lower Thames crossing is largely that it is a big tunnel offline. I do not want to underestimate it because it is not as simple as that. As Anthony says, do it offline and pin it in. But it is not like you are working extensively on the main line as well. Our expectation would be that there may be some interaction, but it would not be fundamental.
In the long term, you would hope that the opening of the lower Thames crossing potentially gives people more transport choice. For the more strategic routes, it actually gives them better options to go around the other side of the M25.
Q328 Chair: I want to go back to this argument to ask you a question, Elliot. At the moment, the M25 and M4 are congested to say the least. You must have done some modelling on varieties of numbers of increased Heathrow-based vehicular travel. Even though, as you quite rightly say, you do not know what the promoters are doing. But let us just assume that it might mean x hundred thousand or x hundred thousand times two or three. Have you done the modelling on whether that means the M25 or M4 grinds to a halt? Has anybody else done it? Has anybody advised the DFT of that?
Elliot Shaw: We have not done detailed modelling, yet because we have not got the proposals.
Chair: Just numbers. All you need are some additional numbers.
Elliot Shaw: What we tend to look at is, effectively, the capacity of the network and the capacity of the M25.
Chair: We know there is not a lot of spare capacity on the network now.
Elliot Shaw: No, and really you are looking at trying to make sure that there is capacity there for when those vehicles are coming in. There are points where the M25 is at capacity.
Q329 Chair: Exactly, so bearing that in mind, as well as that on some parts of some days they grind to a halt, you must have done some tolerances on different additional numbers.
Elliot Shaw: We have not yet, because, again, a big question will be: what are the promoters’ plans? We would expect the promoters to create some capacity when they come in.
Q330 Chair: On the SRM?
Elliot Shaw: Yes.
Chair: Really?
Elliot Shaw: Again, through things like the southern access tunnel and various junction improvements, including the works on the M25, you would expect there to be some capacity changes. That is not necessarily adding lanes. Often it is junction improvements. Junctions specifically tend to be particular pinch points. We need to look at the network as is, but also put the plans against them and then work that through.
Q331 Chair: Will you be seeking conditions or expectations of certain amounts of additional capacity? It has offered it, but have you said that if there is an increase of, say, 10 million, you would require x additional capacity? Are you seeking that?
Elliot Shaw: In terms of the NPS, we want the promoter to be clear that it can demonstrate that there is the capacity to take the additional traffic that it is projecting. There are points where traffic breaks down, and as you say, flows gum up. That is not just a congestion issue; there is a point where it becomes a safety issue as well, if people cannot get on or off the network, so we would look to make sure that that is clear.
Anthony Smith: I think your question touches upon the issue of the resilience of networks, because the more you sweat networks—the more you pack things into them, as we have seen with the rail network over the last 25 years—the less resilient they become. It is just inevitable, and the safety implications of that are very important because you can cram more cars in, but if they are all crawling along at 5 mph and something happens, it is going to have a tremendous back-up.
Q332 Chair: I was just trying to establish whether anybody has done any modelling on how much additional capacity would be needed.
Alex Williams: The modelling is under way.
Q333 Chair: You are doing it?
Alex Williams: No, sorry—we aren’t. The modelling being done by Heathrow is under way. It has bought our models; it has probably bought a range of transport models. That work is under way, and I think it will be co-ordinated through Anthony’s group, but none of us has seen the results of that yet, so we cannot say what the impacts will be because we have not got the modelling yet. It bought licences to do the modelling properly, so it is under way, but there are no results just yet.
Steven Costello: We are looking through the other end of the telescope at what our rail schemes could take off the network.
Q334 Chair: That is good to hear. I have a quick-fire question to finish: if a promoter met all the surface access requirements spelled out in the draft HENPS, do you think that would result in the right transport mix for Heathrow and enough mitigation of the transport flows?
Alex Williams: If they meet the mode-share targets, you are accepting 60,000 vehicles a day extra going to the airport. That is why the deletion of the aspiration of no extra traffic is a big deal. At the moment, I am not convinced that they would meet those mode-share targets, but even if they did, you are dealing with a big impact on the local road network.
Q335 Chair: That is an important figure to remember: 60,000 extra a day.
Anthony Smith: I think the aspiration is not yet met by the reality of understanding how this is all going to happen. Until we see more detail up front, that question is a bit difficult to answer, to be honest.
Elliot Shaw: I feel similarly. If they meet all the conditions, they are in a strong position. As we have discussed, we would like to see all trips, including things like the conditions around passenger trips. We need to understand all trips in the round.
Q336 Chair: An additional 60,000 vehicles a day would need additional capacity on the SRN.
Elliot Shaw: It would. Again, we feel we are still some way from understanding whether it will be 60,000.
Q337 Chair: Has Heathrow agreed to fund that additional capacity?
Elliot Shaw: Heathrow will fund the road works. The detail is not there yet. We would expect it to increase capacity through the works, but all the detail of that needs to be worked through. What we would expect it to do—we would expect any promoter to do this—is demonstrate that there is the capacity for the traffic it is putting on the network, whatever that number is.
Steven Costello: The percentages are achievable, but it needs to be a different set of metrics and a different approach to timescales.
Chair: That brings our first panel to an end. I thank you all very much for your evidence and for the time you spent preparing for this session. As we always say, if you felt there was anything you did not get a chance to elaborate sufficiently on or that we did not cover at all, please feel free to write to us.