I personally believe that the third runway option at Heathrow is the best proposal in terms of expansion. The Thames Estuary airport seems to be quite a long way from London. One of the great things about Heathrow airport is that it is situated not so far from London. (Roughly 40 min).
Correct, it is. Even if they decide to build an estuary airport, LHR expansion is still needed and soon. Why? because LHR is full, and there has to be some provision for expansion for the intervening decades until the estuary airport is built (don’t be fooled that it’s just one decade).
Heathrow is 20 mi. west of London, the estuary airport is 40-70 mi. east, depending on the site.
But a Thames airport could feasibly be less than 20 minutes away by high speed train/maglev...
…we all know that it wouldn’t be.
When you think of all the new airports built worldwide since the 60's (Changi, Jakarta, HK, CDG, Oslo, Atlanta, DFW.....) it's a dreadful shame we didn't close LHR in the late 60's
Well, we didn’t, so that particular ship sailed half a century ago. The proposals in the 1970s, Cublington, Foulness, etc., were for a “third” London airport, not a replacement for LHR.
if you happen to live in W London there is a whole different set of issues and there have been for years - noise, pollution, traffic.......
Allegedly, but house prices tell an entirely different story! If the blight is so bad, you have to ask yourself why house prices are so high, and why the “well-to-do” who can afford to live anywhere choose to live under the flight path.