I can't believe time and tax payers money are still being wasted on the feasibility of an estuary airport. It's absolutely ridiculous.
People say our airports, especially Heathrow are a disgrace and that LHR is in the wrong place. Seriously?? Any Thames airport would be in the wrong place, for sure. It's also extremely damaging to wildlife (and added risk of birdstrikes) and the cost of an airport and associated infrastructure in that location is way off the scale. We can't afford it and shouldn't pay for it. The whole estuary airport thing is a stupid dream. Those who suggest that people and all of the businesses should up sticks and move to the East of London when Heathrow shuts need a reality check. How pointless.
It's also obvious that those who promote the notion of an estuary airport are showing their complete lack of understanding of business, infrastructure, aviation and also of the environment. Get real.
We need to make use of existing airports and expand those sites.
One good example of this would be the infrastructure that serves LGW. It's becoming a bit of a transport hub in itself. The railway station redevelopment and the amount of trains that will serve the airport (a train every 2.5 mins to London) by 2019 is testimony to that. I believe a prunner stated not too long ago that trains only serve the South Terminal, so it certainly isn't ideal. The transit will get you to the North Terminal in a matter of minutes, so it's irrelevant.
The point I'm trying to make is that there IS plenty of investment going into Heathrow (in the right location) and also Gatwick (also happens to be in the right location). Both airports need more runways. In the case of LGW, it has the busiest single runway operation in the world. This means that it could do with a 2nd runway. FACT. The capacity is there and it will certainly grow.
Likewise with LHR. Both of these airports are ideally located to serve the southeast and its future capacity problems. Lay the runways at both of these sites and it's problem solved. Simple as that.
It's a lot simpler than moving London to the east as some would suggest. That's just plain crazy!
We have airports. Let's not pointlessly build more to satisfy a few people's uninformed desires.... Boris, Silver etc.