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Stansted and Thames Estuary re-emerge as London’s airport debate kicks off

Politicians and engineers line up against Davies recommendation to expand Heathrow in favour of developing under-exploited Stansted – and Thames Estuary still the right solution, says Boris.

Expansion at Stansted Airport and even a revival of the once abandoned four runway Thames Estuary hub airport have emerged as credible long term solutions to the UK’s airport capacity problem as engineers and politicians absorbed the recommendations of the Davies Commission.

The unresolvable politics of delivering a third runway at Heathrow and creating a world class hub airport for the future, said politicians and engineers, made the Davies Commission recommendation for expansion at Heathrow simply undeliverable.

Instead, the focus should – and most likely would, some said – return to deliverable options at Gatwick Airport, which Davies considered a “credible” option, but also at Stansted and the Thames Estuary - an option that remains central to the recently published London 2050 Infrastructure Plan.

"We will have to go through this exercise of looking again at Heathrow, come through it and look at the superior solutions and the long term solution lies in the Thames Estuary,” Boris Johnson

“The Commission’s report makes clear that expansion at Gatwick is deliverable,” said Gatwick Airport chief executive Stewart Wingate. 

“We are confident that when the Government makes that decision they will choose Gatwick as the only deliverable option,” he said. 

He added: “For instance, this report highlights the very significant environmental challenges at Heathrow such as air quality and noise impact. Gatwick will give the country the economic benefits it needs and at the same time impact far less people. Above all - after decades of delay - it can actually happen.” 

London Mayor Boris Johnson – new MP for Uxbridge - led the political charge against development at Heathrow.

“I don’t think it is deliverable,” he said, highlighting the significant legal and environmental obstacles that wold have to be overcome to develop at Heathrow.

“What is going to happen now is that we will have to go through this exercise of looking again at Heathrow, come through it and look at the superior solutions and the long term solution lies in the Thames Estuary,” he said.

“The answer with airport expansion – assuming that you need it, is that actually we will go to Gatwick next and thereafter we will go to Stansted. Then Stansted and Stansted – an airport that was designed for four runways" Steve Norris

“Our view has always been that Gatwick and Heathrow are bad options but that Heathrow is considerably the worst. Having circled around and around this debate for years it will eventually come into land at the Estuary,” he added. “The report only deals with a 15 year time horizon. Heathrow will come forward with a fourth runway. We need build something that looks beyond 2030.”

Daniel Moylan, chair of the Mayor's Design Advisory Group and the main force behind the Thames Estuary airport plan dismissed by the Davies Airport Commission, also remains wedded to the need to move the hub away from  

“It is simple – we need a major hub airport with four runways. The sad fact is that can’t be at Heathrow. And like any business that has out grown its premises [Heathrow] has to face up to that fact. In order to grow they will have to move,” he said, speaking ahead of publication of the Davies recommendation. (see video interview from Base London).

“Whatever Howard Davies says – and I think he is largely irrelevant now to this – they will have to face up to that and the government will have to face up to it and something will be done otherwise we will have a major hub airport but it will be in Amsterdam,” he added. “I don t think and Boris doesn’t think that is a basis on which London can successfully thrive.”

Lord Foster architect of the Thames Hub airport proposal agreed stating: “The current ‘patch and mend’ attitude to increase airport capacity is not the answer to the massive challenges we face today.”

He added: We believe the Thames Hub is the only comprehensive, durable solution that can ensure aviation hub status and long-term economic prosperity in Britain for this century and beyond. As someone who is close to the world of aviation, I believe there are also serious security risks of overflying the heart of a city at the scale of London.”

Former Transport Minister and past London Mayor candidate Steve Norris agreed that continuing to overfly London was a “suicidally stupid thing to do” but said that neither closing nor expanding Heathrow was a realistic politically deliverable option.

Speaking at the Base London event ahead of the Davies recommendation Norris said while that the reality was that Heathrow “is simply in the wrong place”, development of an estuary airport “is a really good answer to entirely the wrong question of what would you do if you could start again,” he said.

“We are confident that when the Government makes that decision they will choose Gatwick as the only deliverable option,” Stuart Wingate, Gatwick

“The answer with airport expansion – assuming that you need it, is that actually we will go to Gatwick next and thereafter we will go to Stansted. Then Stansted and Stansted – an airport that was designed for four runways which is currently run with one,” he said.

“With the right kind of [transport] linkages – and incidentally Crossrail 2 helps you to do that – then you have got your airline capacity sorted out – without overflying the most populous city in Europe, which is a suicidally stupid thing to do,” he added.

But an estuary airport,  said Norris, is not the answer.

“As Boris [Johnson] is now discovering as the Member of Parliament for Uxbridge, local people do not want a third runway but they also don’t want you to close the two they have got,” he said. “And what no one has ever explained is how you get that 20 year transition from being one of the world largest and most complex airports to being a thriving borough with a science park."

Scot Parkhurst, managing director of consultant Tyréns UK also said the Stansted option should be reconsidered alongside Gatwick.

“The Airports Commission’s announcement that at third runway at Heathrow Airport is the preferred solution is disappointing,” he said.  “The environmental impacts associated with adding an additional 250,000 flights  per year at Heathrow Airport are huge when compared to developing Gatwick or Stansted.“    

He added: “With the increasing risk of major airport disruption from terrorism, expanding Heathrow Airport into the UK's only major hub airport would be crazy.  I hope the Government will consider the economic, resilience and environmental benefits associated with developing Gatwick or Stansted.”

If you would like to contact Antony Oliver about this, or any other story, please email antony.oliver@infrastructure-intelligence.com.