London 3 (St Pancras, Cross-Rail, Heathrow) West Midlands 0.

I have to admit, and all of my environmentalist friends with cringe when I say it but I do like to travel, and that means today a fair bit of flying. Not a huge amount, I travel by train when I can but this year I have flown about six times including two Atlantic crossings. Some years ago after a series of terrible journeys I made a pledge that whenever I went I would avoid going through Heathrow Airport at all costs.

Quite frankly it is a dump. What’s more it is a dump that may have access to all parts of the world from its runways, but on many occasions, which just happen to be the times you want to get there it does not have access to England.

What on earth the Government can be thinking of in trying to shoe-horn another runway between the M3, the M4 and the M25 is beyond me. One can only conclude that the Government have been captured by the Airport operator BAA. Although BAA seems to be in the static rather than the travel business, as they seem more interested in keeping travellers in the Airport as long as possible as captive consumers in their shopping malls, rather than in getting them quickly and safely into the air.

I remember on one trip I was forced to stay overnight at the airport to catch an early morning flight because it was impossible to guarantee that I could make the check in time in the morning rush hour. It still took me over an hour, despite the fact I could see the aeroplane to get from the hotel to the check in desk.

So my question is, even if you mange to demolish Windsor Castle and Hampton Court Palace to get the new runway down, how will the passengers disembark onto the surrounding infrastructure? We have of course been promised cross-rail but how long is that going to take to tunnel east-west under London?

As a railway fan I have greatly enjoyed the programmes on BBC about the redevelopment of St Pancras Station. What a wonderful inspiring building, but you don’t get much these days for £800 million pounds; the most glorious part of the architecture was built for us by our Victoria forefathers.

Nonetheless look what that investment has done for the image of London and the image of rail travel. It has given even that city of landmarks a new one and made travelling by rail almost sexy.

So where does that leave us in the West Midlands. Travellers from the region will be still be spending millions of pounds a year to get to Heathrow because our own Airport needs a longer runway for those inter-continental flights. There is potential capacity to be used at Birmingham Airport and at East Midlands Airport if the Government stops and thinks for a moment.

Add in some improved rail links to these airports which in the case of Birmingham are already quite good and you have relatively painless expansion. Look if a revitalised St Pancras can make the area around Kings Cross sexy just think what a strikingly designed new New Street could do for Birmingham.

If we include in this the improved cross country rail connections that a new station could deliver and we are looking at a genuinely integrated transport strategy. Isn’t that what they have been telling us for years is the Holy Grail of transport thinking?

I can imagine at some point in the future when the airport is expanded all those planes land at Heathrow and all those people pile out into the terminal and realise there is no space to go anywhere and go straight back home. Like our Government they will never know that a place called England exists. Maybe then a future government will realise the missed opportunity they where presented with in 2007.