ACN and PCN

[Porrohman]

Thanks once again for your replies OverRun.

As regards a "Central Scotland Airport", this has been considered on a number of occasions in the last half century or so. There are very few suitable sites in Central Scotland because of terrain and weather. In addition, the costs of such a project would be extremely high and therefore difficult to justify on economic grounds for the foreseeable future.

Four possible sites have been considered. These were at Slammanan, west of Kirkintilloch, west of Stirling and Airth. Of these, the only one that was considered to be suitable was at Airth which is between Grangemouth and Stirling but it's doubtful that a runway much longer than 3,000m could be shoe-horned into the site unless the village was demolished. The rest of the possible sites were discounted because of terrain, geology, surface access and a variety of other reasons.

A study in 2002 by academics from universities in Glasgow and Edinburgh summarises the possibility of a Central Scotland as follows;

Executive Summary
• There does not seem to be a case for constructing a new airport in central
Scotland.
• Suitable sites for constructing a new airport in central Scotland are rare, but an
area around Airth has been identified as a possibility (section 4).
• The costs of such a project have been estimated to be anything from
£5.8billion to £7.4billion (Tables 7, 8 and 9 and section 5.1.6.2).
• The costs of operating a large new airport would be significantly lower than
experienced at Edinburgh or Glasgow and would bring producer benefits
(section 5.1.6.4 and Appendix-B-Figure 9).
• Travellers would experience benefits of a greater frequency of flights and a
wider range of destinations. These benefits are offset somewhat by the
reduced convenience of the Central Scotland Airport’s location (section
5.1.6.3).
• Surface access distances to a Central Scotland Airport would increase by 56%
to 66% over current levels (section 5.1.6.7).
• Transferring to a central Scotland location would mean over 3000 of the
existing workforce at the two airports retaining their jobs, but 4,000 losing
their jobs in Edinburgh and Glasgow (section 5.1.3 and Table 3).
• These lost jobs would be concentrated in the lower skilled occupations.
Glasgow would be more badly affected than Edinburgh (section 5.1.3).
• Despite firms claiming that access to air transport is important, this indirect
employment is widely spread and unlikely to change much locationally in
response to the creation of a Central Scotland Airport (section 5.1.3).
• A Central Scotland Airport would be largely neutral to planning in west
Edinburgh but would sharply conflict with Glasgow City and Clyde Valley
Joint Structure Plans (section 5.1.4).
• The scope for creating a hub operation at a Central Scotland Airport is
distinctly limited, in part owing to the success of Copenhagen Airport (section
3.2).
• The cost of such a construction significantly outweighs the estimated benefits,
with benefit-cost-ratios of 0.45 to 0.58 being typical estimates (section 5.1.6.8
and Table 14).
• The benefit-cost ratio of a Central Scotland Airport is markedly less that other
much more promising airport investment possibilities, such as an additional
runway at Edinburgh with a benefit-cost-ratio of 2.93 (section 5.1.6.8 and
Table 13).
• Were such a project as a central Scotland Airport ever to be viable, it would
certainly be beyond the 2030 planning period.
• For an economy on the geographic margins of Europe, good air transport
linkages are vital for growth (section 5.1.1).
• The above conclusions regarding a Central Scotland Airport imply that the
responsibility for developing central Scotland’s vital airlinks essentially rests
with Edinburgh and Glasgow Airports, currently under the common ownership
of BAA plc (section 5.1.2 and section 6).
• Serious consideration should, therefore, be given to maximising the potential
of these assets – for example, by linking Edinburgh Airport directly to the M8
and by providing direct through rail links from Glasgow Airport through the
City of Glasgow to Edinburgh Airport and the City of Edinburgh (section 6).

Source; http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/mainbg/Files/csa%20study.pdf

The conclusion of this and other studies has been that the best option is to develop Edinburgh and Glasgow airports rather than consider a Central Scotland Airport.