SOUTHEND

[HZ123]

A flyer in the Times yesterday on 'The Thames Gateway' mentioned about the new station and terminal that is proposed at SEN. Is this just a pipedream ?

[southender]

Does'nt seem to be much happening at the moment regarding the development, although some derelict buildings on the eastern boundary have been demolished in about the area where the new terminal will be. The eastern boundary road has also been roped off, which has spoiled the spectators viewing points.

However, the existing airport terminal still has plans of the new terminal and spectator visitors centre on view, so we must assume things are still proceeding.

There was an issue a week or two ago concerning car parking for the new station. Apparently the rail company want to provide a car park for rail commuters which will have to be built on green belt land, and this is firmly opposed by local residents. The airport authorities made a big issue of the car park, insinuating that the whole development of the airport could fail if permission to build the car park was not given. Then, a day or two before the council was due to consider the application, the airport authorities withdrew it, saying further consideration needed to be given to their application.

The whole thing seems to be in limbo at present.

An interesting item appeared in the local paper the 'ECHO' yesterday where in an interview the chief executive of Stansted Airport welcomed the development of Southend Airport and looked forward to the two airports working side by side to promote air travel from and to Essex. He also mentioned that feeder flights could operate from Southend to Stansted now that Stansted has a wide range of international destinations, including Transatlantic flights.

An interesting concept, but not likely to happen IMHO.

Cheers

Southender

[airhumberside]

In my opinion a railway station is vital to SEN developing. It musnt be forgotten that the train service that would serve any station would go past Stratford so the airport could attract some of the 2012 Olympics traffic

[WHBM]

Why will traffic be attracted with a new terminal that won't be attracted initially with the current one ?

Whenever I GA through Southend I walk out through this quite large, modern, completely empty terminal building.

I think the train station has been proposed for the last 50 years. It was certainly in prospect when the line was changed to electric trains in the 1950s (when of course there was quite a lot of passenger traffic through a terminal building smaller than the current one).

Airhumberside :

The Olympics traffic in 2012 will be for three weeks. You don't build big capital investment projects for that.

[HZ123]

Not sure about the capital investment issue, no doubt a fortune will be spent and lost for the Olympic fiasco, so a new term at SEN would be small fry. Thanks for the info.