Quote: "Fantasy Island cannot be built without shutting down its competitors, therefore it cannot be built. End of discussion."
Nicely put, jabird, succint and to the point.
Thanks, but having read all 98 pages of the document, I'm not so sure. All I got was endless waffle - 31 x "stakeholders", 20 x "solution", but then again - not a single mention of Fanstasy Island! Even LHR 3 was dismissed out of hand at the start - although I don't agree with it, it certainly needs to be discussed if you are going to re-open the case.
Quote: "Which is exactly why it WILL be built. What developer could not resist getting their hands on the most valuable piece of real-estate in Britain."
Again, we've been here before. It IS valuable as a functioning airport. Otherwise it is just another large brownfield site with half-decent transport links - nothing more, nothing less. It is only relevant as a bi-product of closing LHR, it is not the sort of place you would asset-strip just for the sake of it.
The UK is densly populated in parts, but equally, huge swathes are empty.
You could also say that about Belgium and the Netherlands - in the latter, the population is around the Ranstaad. Yet despite this, Schiphol still has a tiny
noise footprint compared to LHR. This is the problem with a 3rd runway - you can't just say jets are getting quieter, look up:
55dB noise exposure for LHR is 700k+, LGW & STN between them are about 25k.
That is why, from a noise perspective, these locations are far less sensitive than LHR, whatever the commercial case or political challenges.
You are rather forgetting that one of the MAIN attractions of Silver-Boris, is that it is NOT on dry land.
No, that is a big drawback. Given your claim that we have half a billion people squeezing into the South East, do you not think that some developers would have tried to build island new towns by now? Why have the Dutch been able to do it, but we haven't?
I suggest that you are just looking at Google's countourless maps, saying our geology is the same as theirs, and putting 2 + 2 together to make about 500.
By your own logic for Heathrow, land for housing is more valuable than land for airports. Therefore, if we can't make a proposal work for housing (in fact,
afaik no developer has ever even suggested it), why is it going to work for an airport?
Remember, the Dutch have also looked at taking AMS offshore, and dismissed it. Why would we be any better when we have virtually zero experience in the field, apart from Arup's levelling two mountains to build Kansai, and then realsiing they needed another one to complete the job. And Japan's debt per capita is?
Now I really will say end of discussion!