Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Britain may build a 50 billion-pound ($77 billion) airport on the mudflats of the Thames estuary instead of expanding London’s crowded Heathrow hub as the government examines how to meet burgeoning demand for flights.
Options for boosting capacity include the new base on the Kent coast, east of the capital, Prime Minister David Cameron’s office said in a statement today. Construction of a third runway at Heathrow remains off the agenda, the statement said.
With Europe’s busiest hub operating at the limits of runway capacity and hemmed in by urban sprawl, London Mayor Boris Johnson has led a campaign for a new site at the mouth of the Thames, with planes approaching over the sea.
British Airways, the top U.K. carrier, said more flights are needed but that a new airport may not be feasible and would damage existing links.
“A Thames Estuary hub would be an extremely complex project with many technical, operational, environmental and financial hurdles,” BA, a unit of International Consolidated Airlines Group SA, Europe’s third-largest carrier, said in a statement.
“It would require the closure of Heathrow, which would have profound effects on jobs and business locations in west London, the M4 motorway corridor and the Thames Valley.”
‘Left Behind’
A document setting out a framework for U.K. aviation policy will be published in the spring, said a spokeswoman for Cameron, whose government left the door open for the estuary option in an autumn budget statement specifying that it would “explore all options” for retaining a U.K. hub, bar expansion of Heathrow.
Johnson, a Conservative like Cameron, said today that sovereign wealth funds will be “only too happy” to invest in a project -- dubbed “Boris Island” by the U.K. media -- which he reckons is key to London retaining its status as a global city.
“You can’t go on expecting Britain to compete with France and Germany and other European countries when we simply can’t supply the flights to these growth destinations, China, Latin America,” the mayor said in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” show. “We are being left badly behind.”
Heathrow “is fundamentally in the wrong place,” he added, with the government “absolutely right to start looking at a more imaginative solution.” Architect Norman Foster, the designer of Hong Kong’s airport, has also drawn up plans for a coastal site.
LibDems Opposed
While Cameron has given his provisional backing to the project, according to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, his coalition ally, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, is against it, a spokesman for the lawmaker said by e-mail.
Clegg’s Liberal Democrats opposed all airport expansion in southeast England in their last general election manifesto on environmental grounds.
BAA Ltd., Heathrow’s owner and a division of Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial SA, said its own hub will need to be expanded whether or not a new airport is built elsewhere.
“Aviation capacity constraints are damaging the U.K. economy,” it said in a statement. “A new airport in the Thames Estuary would cost up to 50 billion pounds and take decades to build. During this time we would be handing over on a plate the U.K.’s historic trade advantages. Growth can’t wait.”
U.K. billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., which has its main base at Heathrow, said in a statement that Britain is already becoming “hamstrung” by a lack of capacity growth and that a quicker fix is needed.
‘One Hub’
“The government should consider all the possible options, not just a Thames Estuary airport,” Virgin said.
“The U.K. needs one strong and viable hub, and the impact on jobs and business of moving this away from west London must be considered.”
Unite, Britain’s biggest union for aviation workers, dismissed the Johnson plan as a “vanity project” threatening 100,000 Heathrow jobs, while the GMB said in a statement it was “plain daft” not to consider growth at the existing hub, which could be expanded more quickly and at less cost.
The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry also backed construction of a third runway at Heathrow in the near term.
“Extra capacity will be required far sooner,” Colin Stanbridge, the lobby group’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “It is therefore important that solutions which can be put into place much faster are not ruled out.”
Habitat Threat
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Europe’s largest conservation charity with more than 1 million members, said the Thames Estuary plan threatens a habitat of “immense importance” for 300,000 migratory birds, some of them globally rare. “Bird strike” would also be more of a risk, it said.
As recently as October 2010, Cameron told lawmakers he had “no plans” for an airport in the estuary or any other part of Kent, the RSPB said in a statement, citing Hansard records.
The coalition government canceled plans to add a runway at Heathrow in 2010 amid concern about increasing noise levels for people living directly beneath the flight path. The airport handled a record 69.4 million passengers last year on 476,197 flights, or 99.2 percent of its 480,000 limit.
“Airports and airport expansion have proved to be the most emotive of issues over many years,” said Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at BGC Partners in London.
“But whether Boris Island is feasible or not we must go through a formal process of consultation with a view to deciding whether building an airport in the sea is something that we should contemplate.”
A consultation will start in March, the Telegraph said. The government said this month it planned to proceed with a 32.7 billion-pound high-speed rail network to cut journey times between London and cities in central and northern England.
businessweek.com
Options for boosting capacity include the new base on the Kent coast, east of the capital, Prime Minister David Cameron’s office said in a statement today. Construction of a third runway at Heathrow remains off the agenda, the statement said.
With Europe’s busiest hub operating at the limits of runway capacity and hemmed in by urban sprawl, London Mayor Boris Johnson has led a campaign for a new site at the mouth of the Thames, with planes approaching over the sea.
British Airways, the top U.K. carrier, said more flights are needed but that a new airport may not be feasible and would damage existing links.
“A Thames Estuary hub would be an extremely complex project with many technical, operational, environmental and financial hurdles,” BA, a unit of International Consolidated Airlines Group SA, Europe’s third-largest carrier, said in a statement.
“It would require the closure of Heathrow, which would have profound effects on jobs and business locations in west London, the M4 motorway corridor and the Thames Valley.”
‘Left Behind’
A document setting out a framework for U.K. aviation policy will be published in the spring, said a spokeswoman for Cameron, whose government left the door open for the estuary option in an autumn budget statement specifying that it would “explore all options” for retaining a U.K. hub, bar expansion of Heathrow.
Johnson, a Conservative like Cameron, said today that sovereign wealth funds will be “only too happy” to invest in a project -- dubbed “Boris Island” by the U.K. media -- which he reckons is key to London retaining its status as a global city.
“You can’t go on expecting Britain to compete with France and Germany and other European countries when we simply can’t supply the flights to these growth destinations, China, Latin America,” the mayor said in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” show. “We are being left badly behind.”
Heathrow “is fundamentally in the wrong place,” he added, with the government “absolutely right to start looking at a more imaginative solution.” Architect Norman Foster, the designer of Hong Kong’s airport, has also drawn up plans for a coastal site.
LibDems Opposed
While Cameron has given his provisional backing to the project, according to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, his coalition ally, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, is against it, a spokesman for the lawmaker said by e-mail.
Clegg’s Liberal Democrats opposed all airport expansion in southeast England in their last general election manifesto on environmental grounds.
BAA Ltd., Heathrow’s owner and a division of Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial SA, said its own hub will need to be expanded whether or not a new airport is built elsewhere.
“Aviation capacity constraints are damaging the U.K. economy,” it said in a statement. “A new airport in the Thames Estuary would cost up to 50 billion pounds and take decades to build. During this time we would be handing over on a plate the U.K.’s historic trade advantages. Growth can’t wait.”
U.K. billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., which has its main base at Heathrow, said in a statement that Britain is already becoming “hamstrung” by a lack of capacity growth and that a quicker fix is needed.
‘One Hub’
“The government should consider all the possible options, not just a Thames Estuary airport,” Virgin said.
“The U.K. needs one strong and viable hub, and the impact on jobs and business of moving this away from west London must be considered.”
Unite, Britain’s biggest union for aviation workers, dismissed the Johnson plan as a “vanity project” threatening 100,000 Heathrow jobs, while the GMB said in a statement it was “plain daft” not to consider growth at the existing hub, which could be expanded more quickly and at less cost.
The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry also backed construction of a third runway at Heathrow in the near term.
“Extra capacity will be required far sooner,” Colin Stanbridge, the lobby group’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “It is therefore important that solutions which can be put into place much faster are not ruled out.”
Habitat Threat
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Europe’s largest conservation charity with more than 1 million members, said the Thames Estuary plan threatens a habitat of “immense importance” for 300,000 migratory birds, some of them globally rare. “Bird strike” would also be more of a risk, it said.
As recently as October 2010, Cameron told lawmakers he had “no plans” for an airport in the estuary or any other part of Kent, the RSPB said in a statement, citing Hansard records.
The coalition government canceled plans to add a runway at Heathrow in 2010 amid concern about increasing noise levels for people living directly beneath the flight path. The airport handled a record 69.4 million passengers last year on 476,197 flights, or 99.2 percent of its 480,000 limit.
“Airports and airport expansion have proved to be the most emotive of issues over many years,” said Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at BGC Partners in London.
“But whether Boris Island is feasible or not we must go through a formal process of consultation with a view to deciding whether building an airport in the sea is something that we should contemplate.”
A consultation will start in March, the Telegraph said. The government said this month it planned to proceed with a 32.7 billion-pound high-speed rail network to cut journey times between London and cities in central and northern England.
businessweek.com
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