Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers has revealed the Tory vision of high speed rail and better regional airports to replace the third runway at Heathrow.

She was speaking to TransportMatters after telling her party conference in Manchester: “There will be no third runway at Heathrow”. She dismissed Lord Adonis’ claims that long haul travellers would switch to Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt if they couldn’t land at Heathrow.

“We are adamant that we need to make Heathrow a much better airport,” she said. “It is hugely important because it is our major link to long haul routes around the world. But we think there’s a better way to do that than a new runway, concreting over an entire village, and 46 per cent more flights.

“We will do it by providing a realistic high speed rail alternative and by starting to use the significant spare capacity at regional airports around the rest of the country.

“If we can find a way to help regional airports some of the traffic from their local population, that is fewer people getting in their cars, trundling down to London and contributing to the overcrowding crisis.”

And she added there would be no problem axing the third runway.

“It is very easy to kill the third runway. People just have to come out and vote Conservative. They are not even anywhere near putting in a planning application. If we win, and I am Secretary of State, I will just go the House of Commons and say it is not going to happen. ‘Take your bulldozers home.’”

For the full story, see TransportMatters magazine, out this week