Thames estuary airport plan

[Ralph Masters]

Would you like to see a new airport built in the Thames Estuary? What are the pros and cons of such a plan, and who stands to benefit?

link

 

[lizzieloo]

It won't happen not a chance. Medway Council, Kent County Council and the RSPB are really against it

 

[Ralph Masters]

But why would anyone back an idea that was doomed to failure? Is Boris Johnson completely stupid?​

 

[mauvais]

Wouldn't the planes sink into the mud? You could fit them with wellingtons but would it work in winter?

 

[London_Calling]

The plan was called Maplin Sands in the early 70s - if only the government had had the balls then.

 

[Ralph Masters]

 

[mauvais]

Ooh, we could use that new carrier that doesn't have any planes to go on it.

 

[lizzieloo]

Medway Council Leader Rodney Chambers said: “I am very pleased that so many people have logged on to support this important campaign.

“The Thames Estuary airport is a completely pie in the sky idea which would cause unnecessary blight to the lives of everyone in Medway.

“It will turn parts of Medway and Kent into a concrete jungle and disrupt the environment off Hoo, which is a place with Sites of Special Scientific Interest and internationally important areas where hundreds of thousands of birds migrate to annually.

“The more people that sign up the better.”

The Leaders of Kent County Council and Medway Council, together with the RSPB, all condemn the London mayor’s recommendations for the estimated £40billion floating airport, off the Kent coast.

Source

 

[mauvais]

Landing planes in the river is only a good idea if you are called Chesley Burnett Sully Sullenberger III, and let's face it, who is, but landing planes in some kind of pie could be quite a good idea for all concerned. For a start it would revitalise the ailing gravy manufacturing industry so important to our northern economies. You would have to get the crust just right so it caved in at the right moment rather than just plain killing everyone, but I think a lot of people would quickly exchange a dull and clinical terminal for stepping straight into scalding hot steak and kidney.

 

[lizzieloo]

It is difficult to envisage a more problematic site anywhere else in the UK

-Central Science Laboratory Birdstrike Avoidance Team
(North Kent Marshes Study Phase 1 Report, January 2002)

 

[Ralph Masters]

Flights would avoid densely populated areas of London therefore there'd be
less noise and air pollution.

It could be as big as required and 24/7, with passengers arriving from London Brussels and Paris by high speed train.

It would provide a boost to the Medway economy.

Heathrow and Gatwick could be closed down and the areas redeveloped.

 

[lizzieloo]

And all the planes would crash cos the engines would be full of geese

 

[Ralph Masters]

Doug Oakervee (who chaired the Greater London Authority's preliminary feasibility study) determined in October that there is "no logical constraint" to the plan. The geese are an illogical problem?

 

[lizzieloo]

Douglas Oakervee is an engineer who builds airports, he would say that wouldn't he. Should imagine the fee for designing it might be the ulterior motive?

 

[Ralph Masters]

Douglas Oakervee is an engineer who builds airports, he would say that wouldn't he. Should imagine the fee for designing it might be the ulterior motive?

Hong Kong airport was one of his triumphs

 

[lizzieloo]

He'd make a fortune, he works for Laing O'Rourke, Laings are the sort of company that could deliver a project of that size. A report by him is riddled with insider dealings. Can't see that it would stand up.

 

[mauvais]

To be fair bird strike isn't such a big deal as it used to be, given a number of technological improvements. For instance it is now possible through interactised entertainmenting to give passengers a sort of PS3-style system in which they target a number of guns mounted on the outside of the aeroplane. During the flight you earn points by hitting geese with your weapon, and you lose points for endangered species or any that you miss and which then go on to cause catastrophic damage to the airframe. The whole scheme is sponsored by Bernard Manning who owns all those turkey farms. Bernard drives a tractor directly underneath the flight path at all times and collects any falling poultry in a holdall.

 

[Ralph Masters]

I'm really against it, but it might be difficult to prevent it being built,

I feel sorry for the geese and oyster catchers too.

 

[mauvais]

You could earn 99p off a pack of Drummers if you took out most of those.

 

[Ralph Masters]

You could earn 99p off a pack of Drummers if you took out most of those.

some birds would suffer regardless

 

[IMR]

I love the atmosphere round what's left of the North Kent marshes, heading east from Gravesend out to the Hoo Peninsula and the Isle of Grain. It's a strange, abandoned-feeling little world.

The airport would change all that, so I'd regret it.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

It would take well long for me to get there on he X26. Therefore I am out.

 

[behemoth]

Doesn't London already have several airports? And aren't we supposed to be cutting down on carbon emissions?

They've already ruined much of the marshes by building ugly overspill slums in the Thames Gateway. And having already taken ever wider M2/A2 and M20 and the Channel Rail Link, perhaps we could be allowed to keep a few square miles of quiet marshland.

 

[Maggot]

Doesn't London already have several airports? And aren't we supposed to be cutting down on carbon emissions?

Too right. We should be reducing the number of flights we take, not building new airports.

 

[scifisam]

Flights would avoid densely populated areas of London therefore there'd be
less noise and air pollution.

It could be as big as required and 24/7, with passengers arriving from London Brussels and Paris by high speed train.

It would provide a boost to the Medway economy.

Heathrow and Gatwick could be closed down and the areas redeveloped.

The Thames Estuary isn't exactly an unpopulated non-residential area.

It could not be 'as big as required.' Have you seen the waters down in that area? It's not exactly a ten foot deep pond. How the hell are they planning to get from the airport to the mainland? Extremely long bridges? We'd be talking bridges about four or five miles long. They'd have to be bridges that could be opened, too, unless ships were suddenly not allowed down the Thames. Or I guess they could be higher than the tallest ships - yeah, five mile long bridges, higher than the tallest ships, strong enough to carry busy trains, over a deep and choppy sea. Easy! Cheap, too!

It would provide a boost to the econonomy (of Essex as well as the Medway - I don't know why some reports are acting as though Essex isn't involved in this when it clearly is. ) It would also COST tons to build, counteracting the money generated.

Of course Heathrow and Gatwick wouldn't close. I thought the people who want this airport wanted it on the basis that there isn't enough air capacity? In which case those two airports - those two HUGE airports - wouldn't close at all.

 

[scifisam]

(And yes, I know you're playing devil's advocate - I'm playing along).

 

[London_Calling]

Of course Heathrow and Gatwick wouldn't close. I thought the people who want this airport wanted it on the basis that there isn't enough air capacity? In which case those two airports - those two HUGE airports - wouldn't close at all.

But maybe they wouldn't expand - Gatwick really can't resist another runway for much longer, Stansted is expanding, and City.

And even without more runways capacity is increasing, flights 'til later in the night and earlier in the morning . . . all that shite pollution over central London. It's a bonkers set up.

This idea won't go anywhere though.

 

[Ralph Masters]

(And yes, I know you're playing devil's advocate - I'm playing along).

I just want to get out in the marshes and start a protest camp

if no one talks about it, it's not going to happen

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Bird strikes are a problem for jets. Just ask my punter and his family who were stuck in Sardina for 24 hours last week.

Birds hang out in estuaries.

Also the whole idea of an airport there, who would want to use it?

Unless the e-mail went to my junk box, the residents of Sheppy, Margate etc. don't tend to be the ones jet setting around the globe. The rich live either in London, 15 minutes away from Heathrow, or in Berkshire & Oxfordshire. To get to this new airport from those counties will be such a fucking fuss that they'll nip to Birmingham and connect in Frankfurt or Paris.

It really ain't gonna happen, but I would imagine £millions of our cash has already been gifted to friends of the politicos to 'look in' to the idea.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

And all the planes would crash cos the engines would be full of geese

Yeah, but geese can fly. Environmentally sound airplanes