As conversely do the same type of reports by of why something isn't safe / should not be done.
These too seem to be produced by "experts" with a vested interest in the topic, but from the other angle, ie prevention of something. Particularly in fields as quirky as this one as it usually results in yet more research grants, more findings, more debates....so it goes on and the money keeps coming in. First approach is always to immediately discredit data within the report to cast doubt on the whole document.
I 100% expected you take this approach because you are so entrenched in your position. But if the topic of a new airport is continually raised in the Thames estuary I can only conclude that the scientific consensus is it isn't an "identified and impossible to manage safety risk". If it was, people would have listened to the academics already and 100% abandoned the plans @:-)
I wouldn't say I'm entrenched. I would say that I know the answer. It's an area of my professional expertise, and no matter how much some people would like it to happen, that doesn't change the fact that;
a) it's an area that in the winter holds millions of tonnes of bird flesh
b) we cannot guarantee to keep those millions of tonnes of bird flesh away from aircraft
End of. Everything else is just so much hot air, because it cannot overcome those two basic facts. There's a lot of birds there, and we are limited in what we can do to manage them, which means the airport will have a high risk of birdstrikes.
Unfortunately, some people don't like that answer, because there is money to be made and 'they're only birds and birds aren't really that dangerous are they'?
You can see it in the report you reference - the assumption, based on nothing at all, that something can be done to manage them... they're only birds....
Sadly, that was the layman talking. Something can't be done. The experts in the field keep highlighting the dangers, explaining there is no solution... and the laymen keep ignoring it because they're only birds and birds aren't dangerous. It's a psychological lapse that you hear a lot of in the field. Birds are small, planes are big... of course there is no danger?
So by all means, do what the other lay people in the field do, and don't listen to those who truly understand the issue because you don't like what you hear. However, do feel free to go off, read the Cliffe airport study and highlight any faults you can with that study. It didn't recommend any further studies - it took the data and drew conclusions about the risk which would occur based upon the evidence gathered.
Only if you can actually start to demonstrate that the science I am basing my conclusions on is wrong will I start to consider that what you are saying is correct. At the moment though, nothing you have said invalidates anything in that study. All you've done is put forward a bunch of laymen's opinions against hard solid evidence. It's faith against science all over again!
