An airport in the Thames Estuary is a distraction, not a solution

Now that Boris has been re-elected I’d hoped the fantasy of an airport in the Thames Estuary would have been ditched along with the unused election leaflets. The idea that such a plan would solve the need for more space at London’s airports has all the appeal of the Emperors’ new clothes.

Sadly it is an idea that continues to have its noisy cheerleaders even though it doesn’t make sense in air traffic control terms, would require hugely costly investment in roads, housing, and other infrastructure and would take years of architects’, planners’, traffic and environment consultants’ time.

It certainly wouldn’t solve London’s immediate need for extra airport capacity. Many rival airports, notably Schiphol in the Netherlands, have seen a significant increase in business in recent months.

Indeed a ‘great’ new airport that hasn’t begun to go through any of its planning, environmental, financial or air traffic control assessments processes will have the owners of rival airports to London licking their lips at the possibility of the months and even years ahead in which they will be able to attract international business away from London, while the new airport is built.

The National Air Traffic Control Service have quietly pointed out the considerable additional problems a Thames Estuary Airport will cause London’s already congested airspace. It would sit directly under the central route into London’s airspace, so aeroplanes containing thousands of passengers a year would be taking off and landing at/or from the new airport through one of the world’s busiest areas of airspace. A Thames Estuary Airport is about as sensible in air traffic control terms as building a new creche in the middle of a motorway.

Inevitably too it would shift the eastern boundary of London’s air traffic holding patterns, in turn opening up the need for negotiations with other nations about changes to UK airspace – at best another delay to any new airport’s start date.

Worse still it risks creating an investment hiatus at London’s existing airports as the business community wait to see whether the idea of a Thames Estuary Airport can really be made to work.   The delay in such investment could then further slow London’s recovery from the recession made in Downing Street.

Why exactly do ministers think that business would rush to use the new airport anyway? Further away from London than most of the current crop of airports, which airline would want to be the first to move? As soon as one gave up its slots to fly into and out of for example Heathrow the other airlines would then have the spare slots to expand into. So therefore big incentives would be required to get the airlines to shift together in sufficient numbers.

As an MP in North West London, I worry in particular about the economy surrounding Heathrow. Many of my constituents work at Heathrow or the businesses that thrive in its wake. Putting aside the considerable financial, air traffic control and planning reasons not to go ahead with this vanity project by London Conservatives, how can it possibly be in the interests of West London to see Heathrow downgraded from the major international hub airport it is now and to lose the jobs and investment such a major airport brings in its wake.

And then there are the environmental challenges. Huge damage to the complex ecosystem of the Thames would be inevitable, quite apart from the considerable disruption to the migration patterns of the thousands of birds who visit the Thames area. But as the man who scrapped the Western congestion zone and ignored dangerous air pollution levels in London Boris could never be accused of being concerned for the environment.

The proposal for an airport in the Thames Estuary is a distraction, not a solution, and Ministers now need to move quickly to end this diversion into Mills & Boon fantasy.

Gareth Thomas is the Labour MP for Harrow West