London Mayor Boris Johnson has started a consultation process to find a location for a new airport in South East England to reduce the pressure on Heathrow and Gatwick.
According to the consultation documents, Heathrow and Gatwick are now at 99% capacity which is causing a lot of delays and backlogs, even before the recent problems with the snow. There were plans to expand Heathrow with a third runway, but those were scrapped under the current government.
One idea being seriously considered by the Mayor is an airport based in the Thames Estuary with up to four runways effectively floating in the estuary and a new terminal on dry land. This idea has a couple of big advantages over trying to build a land based airport:
1) Building in the estuary gets around the simple lack of room in one of the most crowded areas of the country especially with all the extra infrastructure which would be required around any new airport.
2) The area chosen has connections to the existing Channel Tunnel rail link and and M2 and M25 motorways are also nearby, providing direct rail and road connections to London.
Of course building in the middle of a tidal estuary isn’t the easiest construction job, but the tides might help make the airport more eco-friendly too with turbines installed under the runways generating electricity for the airport.
Ed: One possibility they don’t seem to have considered is whether being water based, would this airport be less likely to suffer from snow problems, just as coastal areas don’t generally get as much snow?
The following image from the Daily Mail gives an idea of how the airport complex might work:
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10 Comments
Alongside the RSPB and a broad coalition of millions, we are wholly opposed to the construction of an airport anywhere in the Thames Estuary because of the immense damage it would cause to the area’s internationally important wildlife and the wider environment. The whole issue was exhaustively investigated between 2002 and 2005 in the Government’s Aviation White Paper. ALL the key players, including the aviation industry, contributed. The idea of an airport in the Thames Estuary was conclusively ruled out and upheld by the High Court. In addition to the unprecedented environmental damage and the resulting massive legal implications, the investigation found that an estuary airport did not make sense economically, would not meet the requirements of the aviation industry and presented a significantly higher risk of ‘bird strike’ than at any other major airport in the UK. It would potentially be the single biggest piece of environmental vandalism ever perpetrated in the UK
Friends of the North Kent Marshes
I was thinking if the runways are in the water how the passengers are going to be transported to land. Other thing that kinds of bother me is what if there is an accident on plane or when the plane is landing. How are the fire department and emergency vehicles are going to respond? The runways that end in the water also sounds really dangerous.
The transport is via some kindof shuttle service to the land. Fire dept and such – I guess it would have an on-site fire service like the majority of airports, but ambulance crews…err…not sure.
Runways ending in the water aren’t unique. I’m pretty sure one of the Tenerife ones does that and one of them in Hawaii too. If something goes wrong, it could be very very wet.
With regards wildlife and such, I can imagine that causing a few problems especially if the marshes are used by migrating birds.
I do also wonder if this increases the chances of a bird strike which is very bad when coming into land! No doubt eventually the idea will be thrown out, but looks more like Boris trying to appear to do something….and spend more money.
How far is actually the Thames Estuary from London?
I didn’t know that there are runways in Hawaii and Tenerife that are ending in the water. So the engineers did that already. But still I guess the weather conditions in Hawaii and Tenerife are much more favourable for a landing on runway ending in water. Also as a kid I vaguely remember an accident on our local airport where a plane couldn’t lift off and ended up in the airport fences. Luckily, nobody was hurt but I don’t think the outcome will be the same if the plane ends up in the water.
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Regarding the distances – if the diagram is right then it’s quite a way off London, but I guess the shuttle trains would get you there relatively quickly. This map gives a rough idea of where the airport and terminals seem to be.
http://www.aardvarkmap.net/mape/ELAHAQ9M?hideec=1
As for planes not taking off, that’s happened a few times. Each airport has a point of no-abort (not sure of the technical name) which is the point at which the plane either has to take off or abort the takeoff.
f the plane passes this point without taking off, it physically can’t stop in time and will run off the end of the runway. In this case, that not good as you say.
Wow, this has stimulated some discussion. Just where is all the cheap oil going to come from to justify the doubling of air traffic that would be require?
I wish Boris would stop wasting taxpayers money on project that would be a white elephant from the day it opened.
Sounds like a great idea – hope this goes ahead
Look at what has been achieved in Hong Kong taking a crowded airport and placing it on reclaimed land out at sea. Hong Kong is now a world class airport. The airport is regularly voted one of the best airports in the world; links to the centre of Hong within 25 minutes using high speed rail.
What does London have an ageing, overcrowded airport that is a nightmare to get to and from.