Heathrow Terminal

"Terminal 5 may not be the last". So said a headline in last week's Bracknell News but I believe that an expansion in air travel is a luxury that our planet cannot afford. Even ignoring the harm that greenhouse gases are doing to the upper atmosphere by contributing to climate change, airline travel is just too cheap. Unlike other forms of travel (e.g. trains, cars, coaches and buses), airlines pay no tax or duty on fuel. They are exempt from the climate change levy too. They are also excluded from international schemes for controlling carbon emissions. We must have a level playing field for all forms of transport that emit carbon. The sharpest instrument for cutting pollution is a tax on polluters and this must include taxing airline fuel. Then taxes can be cut on less harmful activities or public transport subsidised. But back to Heathrow Terminal 6 (and the third runway too) surely by the time these are built, further improvements in teleconferencing will lessen the need for business travel and, as for leisure travellers, global warming will mean that we will be taking our holidays in UK. David Young, the Green Party General Election candidate for Bracknell.