Just had a text message from someone there , incident on runway terminal 2. No other info yet.

Oh god, hope it's not another attack Dilly, can't bear it...

I have a photo looking out from the plane with everyone standing on the tarmac so don't think it will be too serious Cools.

Terminal evacuated due to unattended bag Dilly.

not Terry may was it ?

Well, it's not very related, but can anyone see the need for two competing International Airports only 25 miles apart?

Liverpool airport makes a thumping loss every year, and as far as people in Wirral are concerned, it takes about the same time to drive to Manchester as it does to drive to JLA. It IS growing, but compared to Manchester's, at a snail's pace.

Airports are bad neighbours. They generate a great deal of traffic noise and pollution and take up a great deal of land. Apart from 'Civic Pride' I can see no reason not to shut down Liverpool Airport and transfer its traffic to Manchester. I notice they have enough land to build a third runway, by the way, and jolly good luck to them too.

My suggestion as to what to do with the land? Turn it over to solar power. It would supply a good percentage of Merseyside with cheap electricity, and do so silently and cleanly.

Liverpool Airport is owned by Peel Holdings, it invariably makes an operating profit although its interest payments on historic £80m debts wipe this out.

Liverpool Council bought 20% of the airport recently which gave an effective value of the airport at £60m BUT if you wander backwards only a few years to 2013/14, Peel knocked £90m off the value of the airport which sounds like some accounting fiddle factor when you compare those two figures.

As it is basically in private hands, why should we close it down. It is the 12th largest airport in the country by passenger numbers (around 5m a year), if Peel didn't think it was worth it they would close it down or sell it off themselves, in reality they chose to buy back 65% of the airport in 2014 to wholly own it.

Solar like wind power still needs 100% backup capacity which increases its apparent cheapness. We have the UK's biggest solar plant locally (72MW Shotwick), that hasn't reduced our electricity costs.

Why shut it down? Because it is noisy and polluting and serves no useful purpose. That it is in private hands doesn't change this, except that there is hope that if - as seems likely - the direct and indirect effects of brexit push it deeper into non-profitability, Peel holdings may pull the plug on it. Mistaken Civic pride may cause the council to buy it back but with luck they won't be able to afford it.

A solar farm is just one possibility for the land. An industrial park is another, or housing, or even simple parkland. A solar farm would however, help to close the Fiddler's Ferry thermal plant, saving a great deal of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

You may be interested to learn that increasingly, wind and solar farms are investing in grid-level battery back up, reducing the need for thermal plant back-up. Also, such battery plants are being built in conjunction with other peak-lopping generating plant, sharing the cost of grid connection. A typical one is currently being constructed adjacent to Beafort Road in Birkenhead which consists of (From memory) fourteen containers burning natural gas to drive generators and (again from memory) a similar number of containers stuffed with batteries.

That solar farms haven't cut the cost of your or my electricity is due to the fact that the industry is privately owned. It has certainly cut the cost of generating power. My preference would be for nationalising the lot as proposed by Corbyn. Then the cost benefits at least have a chance of reaching us.

There is quite a bit of commercial use of Liverpool airport as well.

Moving the airport to Manchester doesn't remove any polition or noise.

Batteries doh :headsmack:

Moving the airport to Manchester removes the noise and pollution to Manchester, which is my primary concern. There is a good rail link to Manchester which Liverpool lacks. I imagine at some point the Council will very sportingly build one at our expense.

I agree about batteries, Even at best they are a pain, but if people can make money from them...

Personally I prefer the drive to Liverpool airport from the Wirral; but then I prefer the parking and the facilities at Manchester airport.

Moving the noise and pollution to Manchester centralises it landwise, at least Liverpool is on the coast which lessens the impact on the population.

Rail links could easily be developed, Jaguar/Rover/Ford nearby use rail transport extensively.

The last thing we need is to turn Manchester into another Heathrow its too big, its too dangerous.

Always found Liverpool less busy when dropping off or picking up. Manchester a bit complicated with all the one way systems and different terminals.

I agree with you there fish, whenever I go to Manchester Airport everybody but me seems to know exactly where they're going.