New Thames Airport for London

[Skipness One Echo]

I cannot believe Boris is doing this for political gain

He's up for election before the Olympics and he needs a big idea as the details of his accomplishments thus far are pretty thin.Making Ken's already implemented Barclay's Cycle Hire as "Boris Bikes" isn't enough to get him back in.

Strata what airlines do you see using this facility and you agree we need to close LHR and force them to move? All of them? You can't expect the new facility to compete with LHR surely?

[silverstrata]

Skippy:

Strata what airlines do you see using this facility and you agree we need to close LHR and force them to move? All of them? You can't expect the new facility to compete with LHR surely?

Yes, of course. This is one time when a governernment has to take the lead and make a command decision.

LHR has to be closed in order to make Silver-Boris a success, and in order to free up land in the west for a new regeneration project - for housing and a new high tech industrial estate. This is the Thames corridor, if anywhere can become the new silicon valley (with all the wealth and education present in that area) it is the LHR site.

In fact, you could say that LHR is a complete waste of space that is holding back the west of London from becoming the the most advanced area in Britain. Don't we have a duty to release that potential, and allow the Thames coridor to spread its wings and achieve its full potential?


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[PAXboy]

Agreed SOE, this is a paper airport. Always has been and always will. BECAUSE of the continued fudge and mudge of the past 60 years. The time is past and the M4 corridor is the Heathrow corridor.

[Skipness One Echo]

Would the forced closure of Heathrow be legal? Ferrovial would need to be paid billions! I am just imagining BA telling their nowadays lower paid and often female cabin staff that all of them need to move across London or find another job.

[PAXboy]

Nice point SOE!!!

And who will compensate all the home owners in the area and M4 corridor + West London whose property will drop in value?

And who will make loadsamoney as the property on the other side of London increases?

This is NEVER going to happen.

[Prophead]

When you see tories buying up propert in Gravesend you know this may actually happen.

Seriously though, its not just airport staff, theres the hotels, catering, cargo companies etc. All sorts of businesses moved to the Thames valley because Hethrow was there. What are the proposals for these businesses.

I have yet to see anything that looks at the effect that closing LHR would have on this area. This is what tells me it is not going ahead. All the plans and documents that I have seen have just been outlining the benefits for the communities to the East of London. Where is the serious study that shows how closing LHR will effect the areas to the west. This shows it is just a political exercise to win votes.

Silver, I know you want to turn LHR into Silicon valley but just because you build the place doesn't mean all the ex LHR related employees would suddenly want to work there in a different profession.

What we really should be asking is how much of who's money has been spent on this political campiagn that will never see the light of day.

[Torquelink]

Why would he move? All he wants is enough space for BA and partners to serve the world, that's not 100% of LHR capacity . . .

He doesn't want to move but, if you accept that London's future as a world financial hub will be jeopardised by a deteriorating level of air service compared to elsewhere, then it's more than just what suits BA. If I was WW, I'd be happy mopping up all available slots at LHR, knowing that I was growing a share of an artificially restricted market leading to higher yields so why would I move? That's why for the Thames Estuary Site (TES - formerly known as Boris Island) to succeed, LHR will have to close. I recognise that that in itself is full of mind-boggling implications - Ferrovial, jobs etc but there's no point in progressing plans for TES if this nettle isn't grasped and WW or his successors will have to be sufficiently incentivised to accept it. This would be a 50 year project and some relatively short term issues will need to be seen in this context.

And who will compensate all the home owners in the area and M4 corridor + West London whose property will drop in value?

Wot - all those home owners complaining about aircraft noise blighting their properties?!

[EGCA]

Build second runway at Birmingham, run HS2 via Heathrow, and Birmingham is then probably nearer to Heathrow than Gatwick timewise.

Simples....and much less expensive than Boris Island.

[silverstrata]

Skippy:

Would the forced closure of Heathrow be legal? Ferrovial would need to be paid billions!

Hey, Skippy, we are a sovereign nation - we can make any law we like. (Well, until the EU gets its grubby fingers on the levers of power in the UK.)

Just like the compulsory purchase laws designed to turn people out of their houses (originally designed for slum clearance), we can also turf Heathrow off its land. And we can do so at a huge profit, however much compensation is given to Ferrovial, if the government does it right.

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[silverstrata]

EGCA:

Build second runway at Birmingham, run HS2 via Heathrow, and Birmingham is then probably nearer to Heathrow than Gatwick timewise.

Oh, yes? Just where exactly will this runway go?

The whole problem with BHX is that there is no room there at all, sandwiched as it is between the A45 and the town center, with the runway pointing completely out of wind. (If you want to see some exciting landings, put your anorak on and go to BHX or LBA.)

In fact, what needs to be done here, is while they are building Silver-Boris, someone needs to close BHX completely and move the whole ensemble down to Gaydon. There, they will find a 4,000m runway, pointing into wind, with no noise problems, that can run 24 hr, and no flights will fly over the city center, right next to the M40 and a mainline railway. Job done, as they say.

They could then create a whole new suburb of Birmingham on the vacated airport site, which could hold at least another 400,000 people (or the number of people that will immigrate to the UK this year.)


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[silverstrata]

Torqulink:

Wot - all those home owners complaining about aircraft noise blighting their properties?!

Ha, ha, ha.

Yes those very same nimbys who will campaign vigorously to save the very noise nuisance that they are presently campaigning to stop. And the very worst will be those who only moved into the area last year: "Wot! nobody told me no airport would have dem big aircraft flying next it ... "


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[silverstrata]

Prophead:

Seriously though, its not just airport staff, theres the hotels, catering, cargo companies etc. All sorts of businesses moved to the Thames valley because Hethrow was there. What are the proposals for these businesses.

Look at what cane be achieved in 10 years, if you put your mind to it....























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Its only Britain that takes 26 years to build one terminal.


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[jdcg]

I think the "development" above may have had something to do with the exponential growth in manufacturing exports / profits not just the political "will" to do something.
Besides, who wants to live in a one-party state where people have zero say?
If China is your vision of utopia you can keep it

[EGCA]

Silverstrata: Yes, apology offered, my "Birmingham" comments were made in an off-hand moment.
Dont want to detract from a serious discussion.

EGCA

[controlx]

Gaydon vs. Upper Heyford

Silver - would suggest Upper Heyford better location than Gaydon? Gaydon too close to BHX and Coventry?

[PAXboy]

Reported in The Guardian today: London slow to become the 'electric car capital of Europe' | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Gosh, I wonder which politician that could be:

Nearly three years ago, the mayor of London told fellow international mayors in Seaul that he would ensure 100,000 electric vehicles were in London "as soon as possible". But the London assembly's environment committee found that since Johnson's announcement, only 588 extra electric cars were registered in London. There are now 2,313 electric cars in the capital, just 0.08% of the city's total 3m cars.

So, it looks as if you can have big ideas and then find the public don't want to pay considerably more of a car in the middle of a terrible recession. Who'd have thought it? Now, back to planning that wonderful airport ...

[Fairdealfrank]

Interesting comments about the future of the Thames Valley. Suspect that shifting the majority of the jobs out of there AND having the residents put up with plunging house prices (thus preventing them being able to move to an area of rising house prices should they wish to) would have a much greater effect on marginal constituencies then any amount of LHR expansion, and this will concentrate the minds of politicians.

Any suggestions that LHR would close is a bigger fantasy than the "white elephant" island. "Silicon valley" expanding into a vacated LHR site is also nonsense: like all high tech industries, "silicon valley" needs an airport nearby. BA, BD (or BA-BD) and VS aren't moving their hubs, the other airlines, many of which have already paid millions for slot pairs (and need to recoup their investment) aren't going either. Charter and no frills are staying at LGW, LTN and STN, and business short haul won't leave LCY.

We are a sovereign country up to a point, increasingly less so because of the EU of course. We could pass a law to close LHR, but MPs in the often-mentioned marginal seats would doubtless have something to say about that, as would other MPs because of the precedent it could set. Even if the law passed, would it not be challenged in the courts? Like all large companies, Ferrovial, and other companies have access to top lawyers, litigation could go on for years!

Is all this a sensible use of public money? Clearly not. Whether we waste millions on Boris's vanity project or not LHR stays open. So that raises the possibility of a twin-hub arrangement. Can only think of one example of this working: at Idlewild JFK/Newark EWR in New York, and that only works because of the vast amount of domestic traffic at each airport.

Let's face it, LHR expansion is the only game in town, we need a third runway yesterday and a fourth one today and they do not have to be as long as the existing ones. Cameron stated at PM questions a couple of weeks ago that Miliband is incapable of doing a U-turn properly. It's time for him to show that he can!

PS love the photographs of Shanghai.

[Fairdealfrank]

Gaydon vs. Upper Heyford

Birmingham-Gaydon (William Shakespeare) International has a nice ring to it! It's on the M40, with a railway nearby. Airport staff could (at a push)transfer from Elmdon without having to move house. Upper Heyford is a bit too far out. However BHX is not operating at 99% capacity like LHR or 95% capacity like LGW, so there's no desperately urgent need for a second runway or a new airport.

[jabird]

Build second runway at Birmingham, run HS2 via Heathrow, and Birmingham is then probably nearer to Heathrow than Gatwick timewise.

Simples....and much less expensive than Boris Island.

Whether it's BHX, LGW, Northolt or wherever, I really don't buy the twin hubs + train concept - there will always be some pax doing this, esp with BA & Virgin having ops @ LGW, but it should be the exception, not the main. Where does this work well in practice? ICN + GMP?

On the other hand, two separate hubs, whilst not ideal, may be the most practical answer - and by this, I mean each handling their own onward connections. That does work in NYC, and to a lesser extent TYO.

I'm not sure that BA's short haul routes from LGW deliver that much into the market, but some of those routes could feed long haul if they were at LHR. The long haul leisure routes can also all be fed, as GLA-ANU isn't going to happen point to point.

A number of airlines are starting to show that they will accept routes into LGW, as they can't get LHR slots - as we've seen new routes to HAN, SGN, ICN, HKG, PEK etc. Eventually, as LGW added more capacity, it could keep drip feeding this demand, but this would be an odd way to expand an airport - basically any new routes which were overspill would go there, long established routes stay at LHR. Talk about sloppy seconds!

It also seems odd that, as the govt first proposed the utterly pointless Heathwick, and then Boris Island, there has been little response from any of the established airports suggesting one extra runway at either of them might do the trick.

I think STN & LTN could continue to take more loco traffic, the former with a new terminal. but the commercial case for a new runway there, based on Ryanair yields, would be very weak.

Remember though that all this talk of AMs, FRA, MAD etc 'catching up' on London is slightly misleading - all those airports have a fair chunk of loco traffic, LHR has almost none (TS, 4Y). The only real comparison is with Paris - still take off 5m for loco @CDG? - but CDG has room to expand, LHR doesn't it. CDG can feed through fast train links in 4 directions, spanning into Belgium, Lux, Switzerland etc and most of France, it will take 30 years for LHR or to develop such a network, and even if that was done, that just feeds more people into a crowded space. At least UK regional airports have much more established loco routes, compared to their French equivalents.

2019 will come and go long before any new runway at LGW could get built, but how would a new runway & terminal there attract airlines from LHR by choice, rather than overspill? Skyteam could work with Flybe to feed into LGW, and they'd have a lot more space than at T4, but it would need to be the deal of the century to bring them over - and how could that be done in a way which left enough profits to pay for all the new construction? Still, no villages or sweage farns to move @LGW. LGW would also need much better rail links, and again, BAA/FV would scream about infrastructure being built to subsidise the case for a competing airport (pot, kettle, black!).

I can't see how LHR could be forced to close either, it would be challenged in the high courts. Govt lawyers would argue it had to close in order to protect this new national asset (owned by the Chinese). BAA/FV lawyers would say 'you can't compulsory purchase one business just to protect the future viability of another, larger, business'. That is called a monopoly!

So there's still no easy answers. But whether we call it Boris Island, Thames Airport, or even if we let Silver continue his ego trip and call it Silver Island - it is still no closer to being a viable proposition.

PS: Architects make very little from large construction projects - combined with the engineers, you are looking at about 10%. Building contractors stand to gain much more, if they get their sums right. But if I wanted to be on the take for this, you can bet that with so much emphasis on the rail links, combined with a planning agreement you can guarantee limits on-site parking, any vacant land within 20 miles of the new site, especially near a station, could turn into a nice little earner - but you'd be in for a hell of a long wait.

[jabird]

Gaydon vs. Upper Heyford

Birmingham-Gaydon (William Shakespeare) International has a nice ring to it! It's on the M40, with a railway nearby. Airport staff could (at a push)transfer from Elmdon without having to move house. Upper Heyford is a bit too far out. However BHX is not operating at 99% capacity like LHR or 95% capacity like LGW, so there's no desperately urgent need for a second runway or a new airport.

I wish BHX would just concentrate on serving the BHX market, instead of these London ambitions. As it is, BHX is nice and close to the city it service + half way between Brum & Cov by train or car, short drive to Solihull + easy access to the rest of the West Mids. Not to mention being next to what must surely be the largest exhibition complex in Europe?

It would be utterly daft to move all this, just as it is equally daft to pretend it will serve the London market. Why will people pay upto £100 for a return train fare to come OUT of London for a route network which is far inferior to London airports (I think at one stage, we had the sole UK route to ASB, but that was about it!).

If you wanted to name an airport after Shakespeare, do that for BHX, or find a way to bring an airline into CVT, and call it what you want!