This thread is about an alternative to London Heathrow, many posts would be off topic if merged IMO.
Agreed. I tried a "London - ALL airports" thread, but it didn't, err, exactly take off.
Although I disagree with the proposal, an island airport in the Thames is a totally separate concept to expanding Heathrow, and needs to be kept as such, even if that means a bit of repetition.
The UK has spent £350 billion on the banks, which has done absolutely nothing for jobs, infrastructure or national efficiency.
There would have been consequences if they didn't bail them out too. That's one for JB, but you can't just go round saying "£350bn was wasted on the banks, in which case let's waste another £100bn+ on airport and high speed rail infrastructure (approx £70bn+34bn respectively)".
That truly is the economics of the madhouse - if you did that, the NHS would be asking for more hospitals, Education would be wanting brand new universities (as if we didn't have enough educated fools as Coolidge would have called them), where would it end? You'd be on to a trillion worth of profligate spending before you even started.
So back to reality - can this airport stand on its own merits? Can a case be prepared which at least says, if the government were to go back to investing in airports, and if it could do so without all the existing privately operated airports claiming unfair competition, then how could it come up with a case that justifies this investment.
At least if it done this way (Silver, please note - VERY big if still), then you can create a case on overall BCR (benefit cost ratio), rather than the airport having to make a direct operating profit.
However, look how badly HS2 has come unstuck, because the government has been unable to provide a convincing case, based on BCR ratios. Incidentally, the case for the second part of HS2 is MUCH stronger than the first, but the project has been split because of an initial desire to be seen "not to be costing more each year than Crossrail".
HS2, for all its flaws, runs up at least to Leeds and Manchester. How will you get northern MPs to back such spending on what would be seen as a London project? HS2 is also pitched on the claim that it is a safe investment, because they are building a new route, and not encountering the risks of operating on a live line, as they did with the WCML upgrade.
You are talking here about a new airport - sinking sands with all manor of geological risks which have never been undertaken before on this scale in the UK. Rail is also a growth industry, despite the recession. Aviation faces huge challenges.
So even if we did go down the government route, I think you will have no end of political problems getting it through, unless of course Silver, you are really a socialist after all, and you just want to throw caution to the wind entirely.