Boris Johnson: New London Airport Proposal

[Accura4Matalan]

This was an interesting topic until it got ruined by football and monorail talk:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...im-974470.html

[Martin S]

I think that this is a case of the right idea at the wrong time. London is now paying the price for the government's failure to go ahead with the Maplin project in the 70s.

It is going to cost an enormous amount of money for Heathrow to construct a third runway and, if it does go ahead, London is going to end up with a new airport, with the present throughput of Manchester, in one of the most environmentally unsuitable locations imaginable. Not only is it going to require the demolition of 700+ houses but also will create a new glide path right across the width of the capital.

It seems to me that the argument is whether or not to spend a huge sum of money to create a new airport that will inevitably be an environmental catastrophe and with little or no prospect of future expansion or bite the bullet and spend an even larger sum of money on a modern airport with minimal environmental intrusion and one that would be capable of almost limitless expansion.

I've argued this out on this thread before and, whilst I do appreciate that, in the short to medium term at least, expanding Heathrow makes the most economic sense, I think that a lot of people who support that expansion will change their minds when they see the massive bad publicity that London and Britain will attract with pictures of people being forced out of their homes to make way for a new runway that will blight a large swathe of North London.

I know that there are environmental arguments against a Thames Estuary airport, due to the wildlife in the area and there are issues with sea level changes but I think these are going to be very small compared with the environmental impact of expanding Heathrow.

One of the problems with any proper assessment of building a new airport is that a scheme has not been worked up and properly costed and so estimates vary by tens of billions - which gives rise to the suspicion that the costs are just figures out of the air deliberately inflated by the pro-Heathrow lobby. I think that, at the very least, London needs a proper disinterested comparison of the costs and timescales of a completely new airport versus the continued expansion of Heathrow.

[DarJoLe]

Time for Paris to take the strain. I don't support the Thames airport nor do I support Heathrow expansion; it's time London accepted it can never keep growing its airports to reach demand, at what point is enough enough? When the end of runway 27 reaches Pall Mall?

[NothingBetterToDo]

What are the reasons for not massively expanding Stansted, and in the long run allowing it to become the main airport??

[mr_jrt]

Just to clarify, I'm not some brummie on an ego trip, I'm actually a Londoner.

That said, how about Birmingham International?

Far better for the country as a whole and not that far from London via a HSL. I can't imagine the difference between Heathrow and Birmingham International makes much difference to a aeroplane for hub purposes. Birmingham would be about 45 minutes from London (the Thames Estuary proposal would be about 30). Birmingham International could then also serve as a focal point for the rest of the potential HS network.

[Will Mann]

Originally Posted by NothingBetterToDo

What are the reasons for not massively expanding Stansted, and in the long run allowing it to become the main airport??

There is major opposition from locals to further expansion there as well.

[NothingBetterToDo]

Originally Posted by Will Mann

There is major opposition from locals to further expansion there as well.

There is going to be major opposition from locals wherever a new/expanded airport is built.

To be blunt, the planning system needs to ignore them and do what's best for greater good.

Stansted seems to be a good option, it's in a fairly sparsely populated area (compared to Heathrow) and it surely wouldn't take too much to upgrade the existing transport connections.

[Will Mann]

Originally Posted by NothingBetterToDo

There is going to be major opposition from locals wherever a new/expanded airport is built.

Not in the Thames Gateway though, unless you count opposition from wading birds.

Stansted is probably the least worst option for expansion of existing airports, but I'd like to see Boris given time to explore his idea.

[Mwmbwls]

Originally Posted by Will Mann

Not in the Thames Gateway though, unless you count opposition from wading birds.

Stansted is probably the least worst option for expansion of existing airports, but I'd like to see Boris given time to explore his idea.

Interesting piece in the New York Times about building artifical structures out at sea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/wo...gewanted=print
quote
November 7, 2008
LELYSTAD JOURNAL
A Low Country Seeks Higher Ground
By JOHN TAGLIABUE
LELYSTAD, the Netherlands — In this tiny, low-lying country, where much of the land has been clawed from the sea, people like to say that while God may have created the world, it was the Dutch who created Holland.
Consider this seaside town of brick homes huddled behind steep dikes. In the 1960s, Lelystad was mostly shacks housing workers who erected dikes and drained water to create land for farming, industry and homes. Since then, Lelystad has grown by leaps and bounds, to 73,000 people — and it is growing still.
Today, just as they have for centuries, the Dutch need more land to house an expanding population. They also need to confront a new threat to their lands, roughly two-thirds of which lie below sea level: the specter of rising ocean levels associated with global warming.
So a government commission recently proposed pushing out the Netherlands’ shoreline to meet the challenge of an increase in the ocean’s levels; another commission proposed the construction of islands off the Dutch coast, like barrier reefs in the North Sea.
One such commission, inspired by Dubai, which built several islands off its coast to form giant palm trees as part of a major urban development plan, suggested a bit whimsically that the Dutch islands be given the shape of plants, specifically tulips. One waggish blogger, alluding to the Netherlands’ traditional tolerance of marijuana, suggested cannabis leaves instead.
“It was a joke, a metaphor,” Hans de Boer, a commission member, said of the tulip design for the proposed islands. “We came up with a metaphor, and everybody wanted to take part in the discussion.”
The idea, Mr. de Boer went on, would be not only to gain land and protect the coast, but also to showcase Dutch engineering skills. At the same time, an island could be an energy powerhouse, shaped like a ring to create so-called blue energy by using the contrast of fresh and salt water to generate electricity, or the ebb and flow of the tides. Wind turbines could also produce even more energy, he said.
Of course, there are skeptics, especially among those who have most experience building islands. “Funny shapes like tulips, clogs and windmills are a good way to start a debate, but they should not be considered as realistic,” Bert Groothuizen, marketing manager at Van Oord, the largest Dutch dredging contractor and the builder of Dubai’s palm trees, told Reuters.
“Islands offer protection against waves, since on the lee side of the islands there is less wave action,” Mr. Groothuizen explained in a follow-up interview by telephone from his office in Rotterdam. But unlike in Dubai, they would have to be positioned many miles out to sea. “It’s far more costly,” he said.
Such work is expected to cost billions — no one has estimated just how much — and take decades. Yet the government commissions insist that their proposals for islands or an expanded coastline are quite serious, and thrifty taxpayers have not revolted.
The pumping station here in Lelystad is one of the largest dotting the reclaimed landscape, and it provides an example of how the Dutch learned to live below sea level.
“There were food shortages in World War I, and Holland wanted food independence,” said Evert van der Horst, chief engineer at a station near Lelystad that drains the reclaimed land.
So the Dutch built a dike separating a body of water then called the Zuiderzee from the ocean. They called the body of water formed by the dike the Ijsselmeer, after a nearby river, Mr. van der Horst said, and drained its eastern stretches to cultivate and live on. He was one of thousands of Dutch mainlanders who settled there.
All winter long, the pumping station’s four big diesel pumps, which are now being converted to more efficient electricity, run on and off.
But “in summertime, every tree sucks up 300 liters of water a day,” almost 80 gallons, said Mr. van der Horst, 64, making pumping unnecessary. “You can smell it in the trees,” he said.
One of Lelystad’s worst crises hit as recently as 1994.
“We had plenty of rain just before Christmas, so we started the pumps,” he said. After months of continual pumping, he added, “we ended in April.”
Dutch companies have gained renown in recent years by helping other countries reclaim lands from the sea. In addition to Dubai’s islands, the artificial island for Hong Kong’s new airport was built by Van Oord, the dredging company. So now, the Dutch government is asking its engineers and builders to come home and help battle the sea.
The growth of towns like Lelystad goes on unabated, crowding an already packed country. With a population of 16.5 million, the Netherlands covers an area roughly one-third the size of New York State, its former colony, yet about 1,270 people crowd into every square mile, compared with 409 in New York. As subdivisions sprout around old Dutch cities and broad new highways connect them, the growth gobbles up forests and farmland.
“The number of farms, about 80,000, is decreasing, while production is increasing. But if we want to realize and continue production growth, we need acreage,” said Joop Atsma, a local member of Parliament involved in planning.
But whether to build islands or push out the shoreline, he could not say. Mr. Groothuizen of Van Oord has no doubts.
“It is better and more economical to extend the coast one kilometer into the sea and strengthen the dunes along the seashore by dumping in a lot of sand,” he said.
“In the old days,” he mused, “the dikes were rigid, of concrete, but now we favor a soft coastline, in harmony with nature. It’s a return to the 17th century.”
Atop the dike protecting Lelystad stands a restaurant, ’t Dijkhuysje, or Dike House, one of many that once stocked supplies to help the dikes’ overseers deal with emergencies. “We have no problem with water,” said Rob Sengers, 24, who has cooked in the restaurant’s kitchen for eight years. Was he concerned about the possibility of sea levels rising from climate change?
“Maybe sooner or later it will happen,” he said. “Maybe my children will see it.”
unquote

So how about a tidal power station combined with an airport then?

[Martin S]

Originally Posted by NothingBetterToDo

There is going to be major opposition from locals wherever a new/expanded airport is built.

To be blunt, the planning system needs to ignore them and do what's best for greater good.

Stansted seems to be a good option, it's in a fairly sparsely populated area (compared to Heathrow) and it surely wouldn't take too much to upgrade the existing transport connections.

I think the problem is that our planning system creates these sort of situations due to its inherent short-termism. Nowhere is this more evident than at Heathrow.

Terminal 4 was allowed to go ahead subject to a cap on flights but the huge pressure on Heathrow led to this agreement being flouted and a go ahead given for an even larger terminal based on assurances that the alternation of the runways would remain in place and there would be no third runway. In fact, the proponents of Terminal 5 made it clear that the idea that a third runway would be required was ludicrous - the additional passengers would be accommodated in larger planes.

Now local residents are faced with an intolerable situation where their whole lives are going to be disrupted and whether or not the planning system ignores them, you can rest assured that the media and protest groups are not going to and there will be a great deal of support from high level with both Boris Johnson and his predecessor and many other politicians of all parties being opposed to the third runway .

We really need a more long term approach to planning. One of the best examples of how do do this was the new Munich Airport opened in the 90s.

Like Heathrow, the previous Munich Airport was located on the outskirts of the city with flight paths over built up areas and expansion prevented by residential development. Back in the 70s, the authorities realised that a new airport would need to be constructed and investigated some 30 sites before settling on one several kilometres to the north of the city. They then protected the chosen site and controlled any development to ensure that the site would be available when the time came to relocate the airport.

It wasn't until the 90s that work actually started on the new airport as the existing one was reaching capacity. However, they were able to develop a new wide spaced two runway airport to a design that would allow a further two runways to be added. When it was completed, operations were transferred from the old to the new overnight, the old airport was closed and is now used for other purposes by the city.

Maybe that is Teutonic efficiency but I don't see why we can't do something like that here - it would make the whole development process far less fraught and remove the need for constant breaking of agreements and unjust accusations of nimbyism against people who have been misled all the way.

[OperateOnMe]

I've always liked the idea of a large port and airport combined and as the only viable option in London is City Airport, having another in the Thames Estury (like Medway) doesn't seem right, flight plans, pollution, safety.... why not realistically consider these two options:

1. New Airport at Flexstowe/Harwich with two/three rail links to London Eutston/Liverpool St/London Bridge... will stimulate development of Anglia, possibly a motorway too

2. Two large Runways at B'ham International, similar to Heathrow, being in the centre of the country, with easy access everywhere, would also stimulate growth/stability to the rest of the country

[OperateOnMe]

By the way, Martin, that idea is far too sensible and efficient for the UK, how would we waste several million pounds on silliness/perks... and get the total cost to be more than a billion?

Although it should be considerd for Cardiff, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Glasgow

[Will Mann]

Originally Posted by Mwmbwls

So how about a tidal power station combined with an airport then?

Great idea. Two birds, one stone, etc.

Might even placate the environmental opposition to a TG airport.

[Will Mann]

Originally Posted by Martin S

I think the problem is that our planning system creates these sort of situations due to its inherent short-termism. Nowhere is this more evident than at Heathrow.

Absolutely spot on.

It's such a nightmare getting major infrastructure projects through the planning system that we end up fiddling around the edges and never really dealing with the real issues.

[LDN_EUROPE]

Cool - when will construction begin?

[DarJoLe]

Boris Johnson's Heathrow on Sea dream doomed to fail
By Brian Unwin
Last Updated: 3:25PM GMT 19 Nov 2008

Boris Johnson's dream of an airport on the Thames Estuary – dubbed Heathrow on Sea – was doomed from the start, as history teaches us.


View of Cliffe Marshes, across the Thames Estuary Photo: PA

One recent headline – London estuary airport best for environment, says Johnson – suggests he has a double problem: memory loss and a lack of news cuttings, not only from the 1960s and 70s, but from as recently as six years ago.

Had this not been apparently the case, he would have been well aware of the outcome of past proposals for Thames mouth flight terminals. One reason they failed was the environmental damage they would cause.

There were other considerations – notably danger of aircraft colliding with flocks of birds. As opposition mounted in 2002 to plans to build an £11.5 billion airport on Kent's wildlife-rich Cliffe Marshes, conservation hopes were boosted by a Central Science Laboratory report.

It notes that 200,000 wildfowl and wading birds overwinter in the Thames estuary, plus thousands on migration – and the obvious way to protect aircraft would be by not developing there.

As the report put it: "It is difficult to envisage a more problematic site anywhere in the world."

Something else the London Mayor has not mentioned while enthusing over his idea for a man-made island for international air traffic is that the whole area is covered by the EU-backed Thames Estuary and Marshes Special Protection Area.

That means extra economic drawbacks and other headaches highlighted during the Cliffe controversy by Sir Martin Doughty, chairman of the what was then called English Nature.

He said: "Under European law, new land would have to be set aside for the migratory birds affected. The cost of this task would be huge and there simply may not be enough land available in the southeast to achieve it."
Proposals for the Cliff Marshes airport were in due course dropped – just as the case for a Third London Airport on the brent goose-haunted Maplin Sands, Essex, didn't survive the vigorous opposition 30 years earlier.

Mr Johnson's argument on the lines of "if Hong Kong can do it, why not London" has a big flaw. In the Far East, internationally important environments have been destroyed by major engineering projects repeatedly, with scant regard for the views of conservationists. Here the approach is very different.

He can be sure of a battle with the country's leading conservation bodies, which are ready to go for a "hat trick" of victories. It has already started following the recent launch of Waterbirds in the UK 2006/2007, a report stressing the international importance of UK wetlands to 43 wetland bird species.

The report stems from a continuous study which has its roots in the Third London Airport row that began in the late 1960s. It rates the Thames Estuary in the UK's top five out of 143 sites nationwide due to the high number of waterbirds found there during winter or migration periods.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has been quick to point out that "this is further confirmation that the idea of an international airport anywhere in the Thames Estuary is a complete not starter."

Chris Corrigan, RSPB South East's regional director, prominent in the campaign that helped kill the Cliffe Marshes project, said: "If ever Boris needed proof of the environmental cost involved in building a Thames Estuary airport, this report – which actually came about in response to a past airport proposal – is it.

"For years we have been pointing to the estuary's importance for countless species and here, in black and white yet again, is proof of just how remarkable the area really is for wildlife.

"The nearby Swale and Medway Estuaries, similarly recognised by this report for their international importance, will also lose out if an airport went ahead. If Boris thinks building an airport anywhere in this area is viable, this report shows he needs to think again."

[Martin S]

This is an important argument and really illustrates the point that you can't build a huge airport the size of Heathrow anywhere without causing environmental damage.

Of course, if you are going to use concern for the environment as an argument against building a new airport in the Thames Estuary you are going to lose credibility if you then ignore environmental arguments when supporting a third runway at Heathrow.

[Salif]

Just expand Stansted and link it to London and the rest of the country by high speed rail, rather then building an airport on the Thames Estuary you can instead build a combined rail/road/power generating tunnel type thingy.

[Will Mann]

Originally Posted by Martin S

This is an important argument and really illustrates the point that you can't build a huge airport the size of Heathrow anywhere without causing environmental damage.

Of course, if you are going to use concern for the environment as an argument against building a new airport in the Thames Estuary you are going to lose credibility if you then ignore environmental arguments when supporting a third runway at Heathrow.

Yes.

At some point you have to say, what is worse - sleep deprivation and misery for millions of people in West London, or disruption to wildlife habitats?

To say "It is difficult to envisage a more problematic site anywhere in the world" is ludicrous, and misses the bigger picture.

[Bob]

I think London has to wake up to the fact that there is no suitable site for a single hub airport in the South East and start planning appropriately. Just as the Swiss don't host the land speed record attempts and the Saharans don't hold igloo building competitions, London can't have a 3 or even 4 runway hub airport.

Options could be 3, 2 runway airports hosting the different aliances. Or bigger planes operating less frequent services. Capacity taken by rail. The solutions aren't perfect and please don't lecture me why they aren't - I know they aren't, and why. The fact is that expansion at Heathrow is not an option, nor is an estuary airport. Let's not get caught out AGAIN, and plan for the future with those two facts as a given.