Airport in the Thames
My working assumption would be that IF a new airport is built somewhere in the Thames estuary one day the Heathrow will be closed. I realise that is not a given but can we use it as a working assumption please.
Quite apart from companies locating "in London" because Heathrow gives them access to the world (it's not the only reason companies locate in London) there's a further subset located in places to the west of London like Reading and even Swindon(!). Then there are all the crew and airport workers living within the airport catchment area.
That's a lot of economic activity. Some of the employers will want to relocate and may even move out of the UK. Others will stay. Depending on the transport links I would suggest many of the ground staff would either refuse to relocate or continue to live where they do and commute to the new site. Since some flying staff commute anyway that will continue.
The end result is that a pretty large chunk of economic acticity will move from one side of London to the other. That raises the question of the infrastructure around the new site. Will it be in a position to accept the people moving from Heathrow. For that matter (no Essex jokes please) is there a talent pool that side of London that can be called upon to fill the jobs of people who choose not to move? And if the economic activity related to Heathrow moves away from the west of London what effect will that have?
I've not seen any discussion of these issues. Have I missed something?