Engineering news
Manufacturers have welcomed the news that the Airports Commission has axed the Thames Estuary airport option from a shortlist of proposed schemes to expand aviation capacity.
London Mayor Boris Johnson had dreamt up the £90 billion scheme, dubbed 'Boris Island', which would see a four-runway hub constructed in Kent. The proposed airport would be built on a platform straddling the land and sea off the Isle of Grain on the Hoo Peninsula. It would have been opened in 2029 with an initial handling capacity of 110 million passengers a year, and connected to London by a short spur off HS1, with a journey time of 26 minutes. Various plans for an airport in the Thames Estuary have been proposed since the 1970s.
Business environment policy adviser at manufacturers' organisation the EEF, Chris Richards, said that less than one in ten engineering firms in the southeast thought that the airport was the right option for meeting a crisis in airport capacity. “Our members recognised that this would take a lot longer to deliver. We need a solution now.”
Other possible options include building a new runway more than 3,000 metres in length at Gatwick, spaced sufficiently south of the existing runway to permit fully independent operation, and a new 3,500-metre runway constructed to the northwest of the existing airport at Heathrow. There is also the possibility of extending the northern runway to the west of Heathrow which would see it lengthened to at least 6,000 metres, enabling it to operate as two separate runways for both departures and arrivals.
Richards said manufacturers backed expansion of Heathrow, primarily because of the freight operations there. “Heathrow is basically a global freight hub. If you compare Gatwick and Heathrow in terms of freight capacity, Heathrow is far more important for manufacturers in terms of exporting.” The Thames Estuary project “had a lot more unknowns attached to it”, Richards said. “If you are a manufacturer looking to export in the next few years you need to be certain there is a global freight hub available in Britain.” The Airports Commission needed to make a final decision on airport expansion in a fair and transparent manner, the EEF said.
Richard Threlfall, KPMG's head of infrastructure, building and construction, said: “The Thames estuary option, for all concerns raised, is a radical and visionary solution to the real capacity and connectivity problem. We’ve been talking about the capacity issues since the 1960s and we could still be talking about this in 2060. From a business and economic perspective, the conversation has gone on long enough and a decision on the solution needs to be made.”
James Stamp, head of aviation at KPMG, added: “For UK PLC, the decision not to proceed with the Thames estuary project must not kick a decision on the overall solution into the long grass. The need for additional capacity and connectivity is a real and present danger to the UK's global competitiveness. What we want to see is cross-party political commitment to action.”