Thames estuary airport plan – it's no flight of fancy

Thursday, March 19, 2009

As BAA is told to sell two more airports, Nick Raynsford looks at approval for a third runway at Heathrow and plans for a Hong Kong-style estuary-based airport

The past year has seen an increasingly bitter battle over the proposals for expanding capacity at Heathrow. While the government may have won the vote in the Commons on 28 January, albeit with a much reduced majority, no one seriously believes this is the end of the story. Indeed there are few serious commentators who believe the current plan for a third runway at Heathrow will be delivered.

This is not just because of environmental opposition to an expansion of airport capacity in south east England. Indeed there are many people who accept that some expansion is necessary for economic reasons, but who firmly believe that Heathrow is not the right place for our national hub airport.

Were we starting from scratch no one would seriously suggest locating a major international airport at Heathrow, in the midst of a densely populated and heavily congested area of west London. As a series of official reports and public enquiries have emphasised over the past 30 years or more, there will always be problems and conflicts with environmental objectives quite simply because of Heathrow's location.

The case for siting a new airport away from major centres of population where it can be approached over water was recognised at the time of the ill-fated Maplin Sands proposal. Since then international examples such as Kansai, in Japan, and Hong Kong, have clearly demonstrated the scope for successful airport developments on land reclaimed from the sea.

We have also come to see the importance of regenerating the Thames Gateway area stretching east from London Docklands out to the sea. The transformation in Canary Wharf is both an indication of the potential for economic development to the east of London and a strong argument for an airport that would help drive regeneration further down the river. Not only would an airport boost the ambitious – but tantalisingly slow – Thames Gateway regeneration scheme, it would also facilitate fast links to Europe by both air and rail.

Unlike Heathrow, an estuary airport could easily connect into the High Speed One service at Ebbsfleet. With far better public transport links the new airport would not suffer from the appalling traffic congestion which is part and parcel of the Heathrow experience and which, incidentally, is a major contributor to air quality problems in the area.

Night flights are a serious problem for airports in the midst of residential areas, so strict controls have to be imposed to avoid insufferable noise nuisance to those living along the flight path. This is, of course, irksome to the airlines and passengers travelling from distant time zones. It also reduces airport capacity. Moving to a location where landings and take-offs would be wholly over water removes at a stroke the need for such curbs.

With such persuasive arguments in favour it is surprising that since the mid 1970s there has been no serious consideration of an estuary site. The half-hearted proposal of Cliffe in the last Department for Transport round of consultation was never a credible option, and many suspect that it was deliberately set up as an Aunt Sally.

There are four explanations. First is the vested interest of BAA, who have benefited disproportionately from their monopoly on London's existing airports. This is not a credible basis for opposing the estuary option.

The second is doubt about the feasibility of an island airport. International evidence suggests this is not a show-stopper. But to test whether an airport could be built in the Thames Estuary, the Mayor of London has commissioned Doug Oakervee, the engineer who led construction of the Hong Kong airport, to conduct a feasibility study. He is due to report this spring, but his preliminary findings have been generally positive. Indeed the mayor and I accompanied Oakervee on a site visit in January where we were assured that the engineering would be less of a challenge than in Hong Kong.

The third question is cost. It certainly would be a major undertaking with a substantial price tag. But no airport expansion is cheap and, set against the long-term prospects of development in the Thames Gateway and the consequent rebalancing of the economy of south east England, the potential costs no longer look so daunting.

The last, and in some ways most challenging, objection is the bird lobby. It is credited with stopping Maplin Sands in the 1970s, though Ministry of Defence interests in the firing ranges at Shoeburyness were probably more critical to the decision.

The advantage of an artificial island as against a mudflats site such as Maplin is that there are no birds feeding there at the moment. So, as with any other airport in areas with passing birds (and there are many around the world), the critical task is to put in place precautionary and diversionary measures. This will be one key element in the planning of an estuary airport. At the same time we should bear in mind the lesson of the recent New York incident that while the aircraft was brought down by a bird strike, the pilot's ability to land on water prevented any loss of human life.

Given the inherent problems of expanding Heathrow and the obvious need to achieve a more sustainable location for London and the South East's airport, the Thames Estuary option deserves the serious appraisal it has not yet been given.

Nick Raynsford is Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich and a former transport minister