Older readers will remember a comedy from the 1980s starring the brilliant John Candy as a hapless salesman trying to get home for the holidays and having all sorts of hilarious mishaps along the way, writes Dave Pardoe, Peterborough Green Party.

If you haven’t seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles I recommend, not least for the impeccable chemistry between Steve Martin and John Candy.

Anyone who has tried to travel by public transport on key holiday dates can relate to the chaos in the movie. Anyway, I experienced similar flashbacks to the late 80s recently when I heard Rachel Reeves announce she was abandoning her ambition to be the first green chancellor to support the building of a third runway at Heathrow, after years of opposition.

Back in the 1980s it seemed air travel had a bright future, most of us were only vaguely aware of the danger of climate emissions.

placeholder image — Dave Pardoe, Peterborough Green Party

The extortionate fuel prices of today and lengthy visa queues to Spain were unimaginable. London was always better served, but not to the exaggerated degree we see today.

We didn’t know it then, but looking back we were already at the tail end of the golden age of air travel.

It seems strange for the government in 2025 therefore, when we are facing an unprecedented climate collapse and a cost-of-living crisis that sees living standards decline, to literally bet the farm on Heathrow expansion.

Aviation is the fastest-growing source of CO2 emissions, and it’s the wealthiest driving this trend, not the likes of you and I going on a well-earned summer holiday.

This decision will not only hasten the climate collapse, but it will also fail to deliver economic prosperity for the many.

Much as I enjoy wallowing in nostalgia, it’s not 1987 and we must recognise we are facing a climate, economic and social crisis of epic proportions.

My fear is Westminster elites and politicians like Rachel Reeves are simply not up to the task.

In Peterborough we are too far up in the Northwest corner of Cambridgeshire to benefit from the proposed (and as yet, untested) Cambridgeshire Corridor. But we do have an incredible asset in being a mainline stop on the East Coast Main Line. Recent investments in Peterborough station development, digital upgrading and the nationalisation of LNER are all welcome developments, just imagine how much more we could do with some of that money now going to the Heathrow expansion ecocide project.

We are not well served in this city by bus routes, and the lifting of the cap to £3 a journey, surrounding rural areas are even worse off – with some villages lucky to get a bus at all. This affects young people, pensioners, and those with mobility issues more than most.

So, my question readers is, wouldn't you rather see a massive investment in local transport and improving what we already have, than pouring billions down the drain on an airport project miles away?

Elected Greens (our MPs and Councillors) are fighting for an increase in annual public subsidies for rail and bus travel to £10bn by the end of the next Parliament, with free bus travel for under-18s. We also want to invest an additional £19bn over five years to improve public transport, support electrification and create new cycleways and footpaths. Our policy is to bring the railways back into public ownership completely, and give local authorities control over and funding for improved bus services.

Let’s leave the 80s obsession with air travel in the past where it belongs and look forward to a brighter future with better, cheaper public transport, so that every community is connected and can thrive, and not wasting billions on airports in London to benefit the few.