Update (27 March 2012): Today, news broke that a cross-party group of MPs and peers have launched an inquiry into UK aviation as it looks like the Government may re-think Heathrow, writes John Barrington-Carver.
If the inquiry supports expansion either at Heathrow and/or at Northolt an all-party report, together with industry, union and even overseas business groups pushing for more capacity, then the Government may be able to claim it had to abandon its anti-position on expansion and save political face. However, the Right Hon Member for Putney, Justine Greening, might not be too happy about that.
Read on for the original post …
Architect Lord Foster has joined the increasing chorus of business people and aviation industry experts voicing mounting concern about the runway capacity bottleneck facing London and the South-East, writes John Barrington-Carver.
This week, Lord Foster has given another airing to the UK’s lack of ability to compete in future with rival European airports particularly Paris, Frankfurt and Schiphol (Amsterdam).
He has unveiled an alternative (four runway) airport in Kent by the Thames Estuary (see map). Built partly on the Isle of Grain and on reclaimed land the airport does, at first, appear to have advantages over London Mayor Boris Johnson’s floating airport. Importantly, flight paths would be almost all over the sea so reducing noise pollution for local residents.
But, and it is a big but, there are a number of practical considerations to take into account.
• The Isle of Grain is home to a huge Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal which from the artist’s impression of the proposed airport would be just to the west of the main runways and adjacent to taxiways. The prospect of a plane crash on or close to the terminal does not bear thinking about.
• The whole of that part of the Thames and Medway estuaries is sacred to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the local wetlands are used by thousands of migratory birds; never a good mix with high speed jet aircraft on take-off and landing despite the relative robustness of modern jet engines.
• Possibly, if the airport were to be shifted across the river Medway to the Isle of Sheppey it would reduce the risk to the LNG terminal also Sheppey appears from Google to have ample reclaimable marshlands as well as farmland space for it.
• Furthermore, as an alternative, Sheppey already has good road access to mainland Kent and the M2 motorway plus a single track rail link to Sittingbourne thus potentially linking the airport with the existing Eurostar rail to London (and the Continent). However the RSPB have the Elmley wetlands nature reserve right in the development area for the airport and the political clout of the RSPB should not be underestimated!
• It is also interesting to consider whether the proposed additional Thames Barrier could have serious environmental consequences for the Isle of Sheppey and the Medway and Swale Rivers. If the new barrier were to be closed and a tidal surge occurred forcing water back into the Estuary not only to the Isle of Grain but up the Medway, the Swale and Isle of Sheppey, it could result in the inundation of both sides of the Thames Estuary.
• A major consideration for any airport located off Sheerness is the 1944 wreck of the ammunitions ship the SS Richard Montgomery lying on the Nore sandbank off Sheerness which would be in the flight path of the Lord Foster runways. Its masts still visible, the corroding wreck contains 2,000 cases of cluster bombs, nearly 600 500lb bombs and more than 1,000 1,000lb bombs. Should it detonate it’s suggested that the blast would hurl a 1,000 foot wide column of water, mud, metal and munitions almost 10,000 feet into the air and drive a 3 to 4 foot tsunami across the estuary.
On paper, the Lord Foster proposal seems an elegant solution to the serious problem of London’s lack of runway capacity, but already there are voices raised in opposition citing the points above. It’s also certain that given the UK’s NIMBY attitude that plans would be fought all the way – even if the billions of pounds of investment required could be raised.
With Heathrow operating at 98 per cent capacity and Gatwick restricted by covenant to one runway until 2019, what Lord Foster has done is draw further attention to the dire need for more runway capacity in South East England. Not only that but the urgent need for a bold resolution to the problem if the UK is not to lose its competitive edge economically and fall behind its European rivals.
(Image: addictive_picasso)
