Greenpeace saying Yes to the new high speed rail link to Europe last November © Rose/Greenpeace
We've been hearing likely sounding noises for a while now but today, the Conservatives have formally announced that they'd say no to a third runway at Heathrow, and yes to a high speed rail link between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds instead.
And so I find myself a bit befuddled to be wholeheartedly agreeing with a Tory party spokesperson, Theresa Villiers. She said:
"This country can no longer put off the decisions necessary to deliver the transport improvements we desperately need... decisions that Labour have shown themselves so manifestly incapable of taking... It [the high-speed rail link] will leave a lasting legacy for the future. And it will lay the foundations for a high speed network that I believe will one day stretch across the country."
The move - which Villiers also called it "one of the hardest decisions we have faced as a party" - firmly puts climate change, the environment and the voter ahead of the business-led pro-expansion lobby, in a way that the Labour party spectacularly and consistently fails to.
According to the Conservatives, the proposed rail link would cut journey times from 125 minutes to 80 minutes between London and Manchester. It would also, apparently, cut flights from Heathrow by over 66,000 a year, reduce road congestion, generate economic benefits and improve transport links without the "considerable" environmental penalties of a third runway.
Sound too good to be true? Well, it might be. We've yet to see whether the policy makes it into the party's manifesto (although the signs are good) and, of course, whether the party is brave enough to oppose airport expansion in general - and not just at Heathrow. And let's not forget forget that there's a whole network of existing railway that needs to be upgraded as a first resort.
In the meantime though, we have to applaud an announcement which acknowledges that decisions taken now on high carbon projects like the third runway will make or break our chances of tackling climate change in the future.
With the Conservatives joining the Liberal Democrats (who have long called for the scrapping of the plans for the third runway), it piles the pressure onto Gordon Brown and his new transport secretary to do the right thing by the country.
