The proposed Thames Estuary airport would be built on the Isle of GrainMore doubt has been cast on the prospect of the “Boris island” Thames estuary airport plan going ahead.
Favoured by London‘s mayor, Boris Johnson, the estuary scheme, involving a new four-runway airport, is being studied by the Whitehall-appointed Airports Commission.
One of three reports prepared for the commission published on Friday has said of the estuary plan: “Overall, the challenges to transition are considerable and amount to a significant cost and risk to the taxpayer in terms of commercial negotiations, infrastructure development and potential failure.”
Another of the reports said Heathrow airport would have to close if the estuary scheme went ahead and that Heathrow’s owners would have to be paid compensation of between £13.5bn and £21.5bn.
The third report cited possible transport improvement costs associated with the new airport of between £10.1bn and £17.2bn.
The reports follow the recent publication of an environmental report prepared for the commission, which estimated that moving affected wildlife away from the new airport could cost as much as £2bn.
The London assembly Labour group transport spokeswoman, Val Shawcross, said: “We have always known that Boris’s plan for a Thames estuary airport was pie in the sky, but four expert reports inside a week have now confirmed this.
“Whether it’s environmental problems, expensive transport links or the decimation of employment at Heathrow, we now know for sure that this project poses a devastating risk to the taxpayer.
“Boris has already wasted millions of pounds on this vanity project. He needs to accept that the evidence is now totally against him and that no more public money should be spent pursuing a Thames estuary airport.”
Two new Heathrow runway schemes and one new Gatwick runway project made it on to the commission’s shortlist, announced at the end of 2013. The commission promised to look further at the estuary airport plan and it is expected to make a decision later this year.
The commission’s final report, which recommends where airport expansion should take place, will come out after the 2015 general election.
Johnson’s chief adviser on aviation, Daniel Moylan, said: “Our team will analyse these reports in detail, but it appears they confirm the huge benefits to the country’s prosperity that would flow from moving Heathrow to a new location and prove that there are challenges, but no show-stoppers to achieving that.
“Of course there are risks, but all the proposals being considered by the commission carry risk, not least the clear risk to human health and the education of children already imposed by Heathrow on great swaths of London.”
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See also
Four Inner Thames estuary airport studies for Airports Commission finally kill off “Boris Island”
The Airports Commission has now published all four of the studies it has commissioned on an Inner Thames Estuary (ITE) airport. These reports are on environmental impacts, operational feasibility and attitudes to moving to an estuary airport, socio-economic impacts, and surface access. The first report, on environmental impacts was utterly damning, confirming the massive extent of the harm done to highly conserved habitats and their wildlife, and the near impossibility of successfully moving the wildlife elsewhere. Now the report on the feasibility of moving the airport shows the problems of flood risk, fog, wind direction, bird strike, explosives on the SS Montgomery and the Isle of Grain gas terminal – with many practically insurmountable. The report on socio-economic impacts demonstrates that aeronautical charges would have to be very high to pay for the airport, and be too high to compete with Dubai etc. Heathrow would have to close, at immense cost. The surface access report shows the cost of even minimal rail services to get most passengers to the airport would be £10 billion and more like £27 billion for a good service. The cost of road improvements would be £10 to £17 billion. The reports’ conclusions now make it nearly inconceivable that a Thames Estuary Airport will ever be constructed.
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