Friday 11 May 2012

The Friday joke: an airport on the Thames

Medway marshes, February 2012 (© Prestolee / @NeilMackin)
It's not uppermost in our minds (though with this bizarre weather we're having, perhaps it should be) but global warming hasn't gone away, you know.

Yet the government is now looking more kindly on Boris Johnson's plan to build a new London airport - somewhere in the Thames Estuary, possibly even on the Thames.

I have to declare a personal interest: I grew up in north Kent and don't want to see the charmingly bleak landscape, and its wild birdlife, disappear under concrete and flashing lights. Yes, it turns out I'm a NIMBY, after all.

Today there was a protest against the "Boris airport" idea at City Hall. Too late to attend now, but If you are interested in hearing some of the arguments of the opponents of the estuary airport, check the links.

The lovely picture at the top is by Prestolee / @NeilMackin and was taken in February this year on the Medway marshes.
Demonstration against "Boris Island", proposed airport

More details at http://on.fb.me/KIb1eV

Speakers include London Assembly members Jenny Jones (Green mayoral candidate ), Murad Qureshi (Labour - chair Environment Commitee), Caroline Pidgeon (Lib Dem - Chair London Transport Commitee))

Supported by: No Estuary Airport, AirportWatch, and Campaign against Climate Change

1 comment:

baarnett said...

There may be arguments against an estuary airport, but none seem particularly well presented on that web site.

Maybe it was a bigger mistake to designate Heathrow as London's airport in 1945, although mass jet travel was not predicted at that time.

Heathrow and other airports could be down-graded if a new one were built. Heathrow land would be extremely valuable for redevelopment, including finding new uses for the shells of the newer terminals. Most likely it could continue as a small, one-runway airport, so many jobs would survive there.