The Alternative Plan For Heathrow Expansion At "Half The Cost"
5 June 2018, 10:34 | Updated: 5 June 2018, 13:36
This hotelier believes he can build the Heathrow expansion for half the cost of the proposed plans.
A hotel tycoon has told Nick Ferrari that his company's plans for a third runway at Heathrow would cost half the amount estimated for existing plans.
Surinder Arora said that plans from the Arora Group would cost £14.4bn, which he believes is half the cost of existing plans by Heathrow Airport Limited.
Arora Group believes the real Heathrow expansion figure will be close to £31 billion.
Mr Arora said that his company had brought in a "world leading team" of contractors, advisors, and aviation architects.
"This is what they do, they build infrastructure projects across the world," he said.
But the businessman hit out at the airport for not welcoming ideas from potential partners.
"HAL [Heathrow Airport Limited] have been very good at protecting their monopoly," he said.
"They have been working on this behind the scenes for decades.
"We've only had our advisors and consultants for two years and we've already got a master plan.
"If you ask HAL today they have not yet come up with a firm master plan.
But when asked by Nick what the trick to his success was, Mr Arora said: "When we were building our first ever hotel, we said how can we build a 4* hotel, with 5* service, at 3* prices.
"And that formula's been a great success."
