London to have a new airport at cost of £47.3billion
Baku, November 13 (AZERTAC). A new six-runway hub airport to the east of London could be built within seven years at a cost of £47.3billion. However, the ambitious plans would require the closure of Heathrow airport, which employs 76,000 people.
The proposed new airport would sit on a purpose-built island off the Isle of Sheppey in Kent in the Thames Estuary, some 50 miles east of central London, and would be known as London Britannia Airport. The British government and business groups want to expand flights to fast-growing economies to ensure the UK can tap into billions of pounds of trade opportunities. With Heathrow, London's biggest airport, operating at 99 per cent capacity, more runways are needed. However, the island airport has been criticised by environmental groups, who say the estuary is not just 'dead space waiting for development'. The proposal was released by Thames Estuary Research and Development (Testrad), a consortium formed by London Mayor Boris Johnson to address the capital's air capacity crunch. The plan, to be launched on Monday at the House of Lords, comes two years after architect Norman Foster unveiled proposals for a four-runway hub in the Thames Estuary, backed by Johnson and dubbed 'Boris Island'. The estuary airport is a passion project for Mr Johnson, who has blasted plans for a third - or even fourth - runway at Heathrow. He said any expansion will 'consign millions of Londoners to unacceptable levels of noise pollution', while a three-runway airport would be 'obsolete' as soon as it was built.
Testrad said the new hub would have six runways and could be built within seven years without having to demolish houses or industrial infrastructure. It will also create 200,000 jobs. 'This project avoids flying over densely populated areas of London and the south east, removing completely the noise contours and impact which have bedevilled millions of people throughout and around London over the past 40 years,' a Testrad spokeswoman said. Testrad has proposed the Heathrow site is 'recycled' into a new borough for London, creating housing and business opportunities. It added: 'Under wartime legislation in 1944, the village of Heathrow and valuable farmland was requisitioned for a new military airfield.
'Relocation and recycling the tightly constrained Heathrow airport site as a city extension for London, will allow a transformation of acres of runway concrete into a real piece of city, with the return of bio-diversity, in gardens, lakes and a landscape park system full of trees, birds and other wildlife.'
The Conservatives last year set up the UK Airports Commission, chaired by Howard Davies, to look into airport capacity in southern England. It is due to publish a list of potential schemes by the end of this year with the final report due after the 2015 general election.
Earlier this year bosses at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports urged the government to let them build additional runways to solve the capacity shortage, plans vigorously opposed by Johnson.
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