ideal location for Heathrow airport

[diddy1234]

I am hoping that this is the correct thread to post in.

I was just wondering if Heathrow is in the wrong location, where should it be ?

In general everyone agrees on the fact that Heathrow is in the wrong location (recent readings of third runway etc.), OK so what would the right location be ?

Some people have hinted at a new airport in / near the Thames Gateway area.
Others have said that a new off shore airport could be created.

What about a disused airfield in or near the middle of this country ?
There are several good connections (Rail, west coast mainline) and road (M1, M6) that could lend themselves to this.

There could even be a new ring road (miniature M25) running around the airport to connect various motorways to the airport.

I know cost would be prohibitive, but removing money from the equation, where would you put Heathrow ?

[hardhatter]

Oh, I do not think cost would be the only factor...how about organisation of the 'move'?

And for instance public living around the new Heathrow area, they would put up a stink about Heathrow coming to them. Or what about the famous Health and Safety? :ugh:

If it were to move, best be close to London, London would not like to loose such a big source of revenue.

[Fly-by-Wife]

ideal location for Heathrow airport

Slough.

Betjeman was right.

FBW

[Groundloop]

Ideal location for Heathrow, on the site of the village of Heath Row. If it was anywhere else it would need a different name!:ok:

[deltayankee]

how about organisation of the 'move'?


Actually isn't that exactly what they did when Munich moved from the handy downtown location to the present very remote one? I heard they moved all the equipment in one night.

But for the UK the problem is mainly one of space. England is not so roomy and it will never be easy to find space close enough to London. Even if there was space who would pay for the move?

[beamender99]

Close to existing international companies and organisations.
Perhaps close to the city of London , the M4 corridor and the M25.
So at leave things at Heathrow or just a little further West.
Move some of the reservoirs ?

[Skipness One Echo]

This thread is fantasy. Heathrow isn't going to move. It's not in the best place but that's the story of the entire South East.
The Tories are looking at cutting 10% from parts of public spending, and the country is damn near broke. People are angered at the thought of the already massive expense and disruption of a third runway and that is a mere fraction of concreting over something the size of Heathrow elsewhere in the already overcrowded and overpriced London area.

Imagine the scenario : "Hello, we want to build a brand new airport, bigger than any other in the country BY FAR in your nice leafy home counties area." WHAT???

IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

[Rainboe]

Brentford. The world does not need Brentford. Nobody would notice if it vanished under all that concrete.

There is no point using 'a disused airfield'? Why? The whole thing would have to be started again. Everything. And not in the Thames estuary please- that's bird territory.

[Final 3 Greens]

Typical Brit vaciliating and tactical thinking.

Decide to run down Heathrow over 3 years and move ops to Stansted and build proper rail links.

Ever hear of a BHAG? (big hairy audacious goal.)

[robmack]

How about the Olympics site?-they don't know what else to do with it.

[ChrisGr31]

The answer is obvious. It would be in Paris! A short train ride from London!

[Guest 112233]

MAPLIN Sands off the coast of Essex - or even better Schiphol.


CAT III

[TorC]

Shouldn't it (and all other airports) move to areas where people don't have back yards?

[Gulf4uk]

If i Remember rightly not only birds to clear Millions of them there is the
small matter of Unexploded bombs and stuff as close by was An MOD
Test facility at Foulness Pig's Bay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig%27s_Bay)


Tony

[apaddyinuk]

Of course Heathrow is in the correct location....or else it wouldnt be called "Heathrow"!!!! :E

[Lancman]

Leave the reservoirs where they are, bring back the flying boat.

[hellsbrink]

Considering that the original planners decided it was the right place for aviation as far back as WWI (seriously, it was a military airfield way back then), with Fairey owning it and using it as an assembly/testing place in the 30's, the RAF laying down runways in '44 so they could use it as a transfer station, which they didn't so, it was transferred to civil aviation with the first commercial flight in '46, I would say that using someplace that has been used as an airfield for the best part of a century is actually the right place to have it.......

[avionic type]

The present location would have been fine but they allowed all that building of houses and other clutter around it when I went there to work in 1947 all you could see was fields and market gardens and now with the growth of the big jets and the popularity of air travel it has got hemmed in.
I believe there was always a plan to build a 3rd runway across the other side of the A4 some of my work mates lived in houses in that area and the land was owned by B.A.A and that was in the 60s.
It not the Ideal place with its fog and the closness to the Resevoirs but there was only 1 to the west at that time so leave it alone it has now got rail ,bus travel but I must admit a creaky road system. Its biggest mistake was to have all the terminals in the center untill 4 and 5.

[WHBM]

Ideal location for Heathrow is at Heathrow.

Cities which relocate their airports to new facilities much further out from the city area have a long history of failure to varying degrees, and invariably the shorter distance operators refuse to move.

Montreal - Mirabel airport a complete fiasco, eventually closed and everyone moved back to the old convenient facility.

Dallas - New DFW airport, established airlines moved over from the old Love Field, new competitor (Southwest Airlines) moved in to the old facility, customers substantially stayed there as well, or shifted back as Southwest expanded.

Paris - Charles De Gaulle led to split operations between CDG and Orly, domestic traffic remained predomnantly at Orly.

Tokyo - new airport required International traffic to mve, domestic operations refused to move, proximity to city far more important to them than connections, has wrecked connecting traffic from Japanese provincial points. When new Osaka opened later, exactly the same thing happened there.

I could go on all night with examples.

Face it, a major airport for a metropolitan area needs to be convenient for its customers. Few, and increasingly fewer as time passes, are going to/from the central area which the so-called high-speed ground transport is proposed to serve. How great for all the regular execs who use Heathrow and live in High Wycombe, or Guildford, or Chiswick, will find it if half their flights get moved to the Thames Estuary, and the other half stay at Heathrow. Will lead to a real downturn in the London economy compared to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, etc.

[Gulf4uk]

many airlines were using HARTFORD BRIDGE FLATS (Blackbushe) but they
decided to close that and rip up the runways . would have been ideal

Tony

[Anthony Appleyard]

It is to be wondered what would have happen if plans to start Heathrow Airport in 1944 had failed, and it had to start after the war and to wallow through years of planning applications, and public enquiry, and difficulty getting hold of the land needed, and demands to preserve listed buildings (9 of them in Heathrow village, and likely some on the old complete Hatton Road) (see Heathrow (hamlet) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathrow_%28hamlet%29) ), and pressure from the farming and market gardening lobby not to build on Grade A farmland, and suchlike.

A diffculty with having an airport too handily close to the city is the airport being reached and hemmed in by suburbs so it can't enlarge. This happened to Croydon Airport
Croydon Airport - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croydon_Airport)
(which started as two adjacent airfields, which joined into one).

I read that near London before WWII, before the airline compaines had thought of Heathrow, there were plans to enlarge RAF Heston into London's main new airport, and a newspaper published this and said that the airport builders should "hurry up and get on with the job, or the land that you need will be built over by suburb first".
Heston Aerodrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heston_Aerodrome)

[Prophead]

Heathrow is in the correct place. Its all the NIMBY's that moved to the wrong location.

[DaveReidUK]

Heathrow is in the correct place. Its all the NIMBY's that moved to the wrong location.

Heathrow is in the correct place. Its just Greater London that isn't.

[Rollingthunder]

http://www.wayfaring.info/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/bow_high.jpg

Bottom 7 floors for immigration control...can be parked beside HMS Ocean

[TurboTomato]

That'll be interesting when there's a overrun or serious runway excursion then.

[TurboTomato]

Heathrow is in the correct place. Its all the NIMBY's that moved to the wrong location.

I'd put money on these people being the same ones that are quite happy to complain when their flights in and out of the SE are delayed.

[The SSK]

Can anyone help me remember the name of that greenfield site in Buckinghamshire which was proposed as the new London Airport, probably in the 70s (it briefly became flavour of the month when Maplin fell out of favour, IIRC)?

[lederhosen]

Wing was the location in Buckinghamshire. I remember it because I landed out there in a glider on a cross country flight in the seventies. The locals were not terribly friendly. I can remember the remains of the wartime airfield were still very visible, so I would not call it quite green field, although it had definitely returned to agricultural use.

[diginagain]

The vessel pictured in Rollingthunder's post is incorrectly named. Surely it should be 'FREEDOM SHOP'?

[Piltdown Man]

Wing (Bucks.) was one of the places being considered for the site of London's third airport. That is before LCY was built and everyone else started calling themselves "London". But the ideal place for London's next airport is not in Britain. Nobody in Britain is prepared to spend enough, there are too many NIMBY's and banks won't get a return in their required three month maximum. And in case nobody has noticed, the government have run out of cash. So London is screwed. But does anybody care? Fortunately is won't be fixed before I retire.

PM

[xtypeman]

Also seem to remember the name Cublington as a potential site as well.

[DaveReidUK]

Wing aka Cublington.

[Gulf4uk]

BLACKBUSHE (EGLK) Had most of facility's needed and was used by many Airlines before they Closed it . Its still a great Airfield but Sadly neglected apart from the remaining bit but the Common area is no more than a dump.
Nimbys Galore there and a very Anti anything council .
loads of pictures in the threads of Aircraft using it .


Tony:mad:

[Anthony Appleyard]

Piltdown Man wrote:-
> Wing (Bucks.) was one of the places being considered for the site of
> London's third airport ...

This name does not refer to flying. See:-

Wing, Buckinghamshire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing,_Buckinghamshire)

[DaveReidUK]

Piltdown Man wrote:-
> Wing (Bucks.) was one of the places being considered for the site of
> London's third airport ...

This name does not refer to flying. See:-

Wing, Buckinghamshire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing,_Buckinghamshire)

I think you may have hit upon the ideal criterion for locating London's new hub airport, Anthony.

With that in mind, I'd like to suggest the following sites:

Sheeplane, Beds
Grafton Flyford, Herefs & Worcs
Little Paxton, Cambs

:O