We also need to agree on the fact that HUB capacity is needed.

The UK needs a HUB.

LGW is campaigning on just developing LHR, LGW and STN into 2 runway point to point airports.

Britain needs a HUB. Be it a 3-4 runway LHR, 4 runway STN or a 6 runway north sea airport.

It always happens with these large projects, same thing with the Eurotunnel and the HS2. The decision making processes are so slow that our current generation will barely benefit from the technological advantages, by the time these things have been realised we're 20 to 30 years onward and the demand for transportation would have outgrown the capacity yet again.
The need for transportation is one of an imminent kind, you risk barricading economic growth without it. I wish there would be less bickering and we'd see bulldozers and tarmac being put down within the next 5 years. Unlikely though.

Btw I strongly disapprove of a "Boris island" scenario, in the first place because of the damage done to the Thames Estuary and its flora and fauna, in the second place because the main reason Heathrow is such a popular airport is the fact that it is not merely serving London but a large part of the South & Midlands. People residing in places like Swindon, Bournemouth, Oxford and such would significantly increase journey times + footprint having to commute all the way across London to the east.

Lest we just kick UK politicians/financiers, when they built the IAD Approach Road back in the 60s, the central median was left wide enough to accept a Metro connection. On that 14 mile stretch, it's almost half-way there (and that's only happened in the last couple of years) :D

Gestation Period of Elephants isn't in it when looking at major infrastructure projects. I will almost certainly be dead before I see the Metro at IAD or a 3rd runway at LHR. I'm just grateful I saw the M25 completed :D

I'll just drag out the usual reasons against an estuary/North Sea airport:

• More prone to fog
• Increased risk of bird strikes
• Too close to continental airspace
• The wrong side of London for most O&D passengers

And my new one, which was obvious really, susceptibility to tidal surges/rising sea levels

I hear you T8191 and totally agree. We are the laughing stock of the aviation world with all this faffing about.
LHR has gone from #1 to #5 airport in the world over the last few years.

On the wrong side of London?
Miles from the M4 corridor?
Force closing Heathrow and intentionaly losing 50-70,000 jobs?
Having spent billions on T5A / B / C, T2A / B and Crossrail?

Follow the money, not the blonde after dinner speaker cum serial shagger or the dashing billionaire's son. Boris Island is known as "Fantasy Island" with good reason.
It needs a commercially viable hub in the right place. Closing LHR cannot mean that exisiting market will use Fantasy Island as all of a sudden, other airports are much closer to millions of jobs in West London. Get it wrong and you have what Montreal did at Mirabel or BAA did at Stansted, a huge new expensive facility no one wants to be forced to pay money to use.

Neither is the North Sea apparently. As I've posted before, this government document lists the literally dozens of similar schemes over the years and they've *all* failed for the same reasons. Thus it's no surprise to see Boris Island being discarded as a serious contender - it was pretty much bound to be that way.

http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN04920.pdf

UK's aviation hub has, for good or ill, evolved over the last 60+ years at LHR. That's where it is, the same as London is where it is, and Southampton Docks are where they are. Massive residential, logistical and other factors have evolved around it.

The idea of moving UK's primary aviation hub is about as sensible as saying "Let's move London to somewhere nicer, like Newquay". :)

You never know, with 2 extra runways there might be enough capacity for LHR-NQY flights (again)

I really can't understand all these people who keep campaigning for extra runways at Heathrow. It's absolutely the right thing for the country but the politicians simply will never do it due to the vocal opposition.

An inquiry that selects only options involving expansion at LHR is wasting everyone's time and money as the results will simply never, ever be implemented.

About the only way something like that would be some kind of local referendum where the choice is between expansion and complete closure with no option in between. I don't see that anything short of that will generate enough support to convince the politicians to overcome the opposition.

Without something like that, realistically the only choice is between somewhere other than Heathrow and nothing at all. I fear we're in for another dose of the latter.

Let's say everything went perfectly and they approved it all. What is the soonest possible date the third runway could be done? From my understanding, even if it were finished today, it would be almost instantly to capacity again. So obviously, simply expanding Heathrow is out. The politicians need to decide whether to take the, 6? airports we currently have, and expand all of them or if they are going to take one of the existing airports and massively expand it or if they will build a new airport entirely.

Has BHX got any potential to be a hub? It's centrally located, the HS2 could link it well with the Capital and it's conveniently central for non-Londoners. If you look on the southern side of the M42 there is a LOT of space and it's not anywhere near as residential as LHR.

This is London's airport, and the regional links cannot be the main focus here. London has 20% of the country's GDP, add in the South East and it almost half of the country's GDP.

London itself has an economy larger than that of Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland, according to this useful dossier of facts:

http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/lon...htm?category=7

It needs its own hub.

There is some confusion about the "Boris Island" plan, which was an early concept island-based airport in the Thames Estuary (never North Sea) with rail links to the mainland. This concept was ditched by the Mayor, in favour of the Foster & Partners Thames Hub (erroneously now also called by some "Boris Island"). Here's a map of the original, Boris Island:

http://i42.tinypic.com/ams6xz.jpg

Here's a map showing the Foster & Partners Thames Hub proposal, which is the one backed by Boris Johnson, and very much built on land, albeit just to add to the confusion land named the "Isle of Grain" (it's no longer and island, but a gravel peninsula nowadays)..:

http://www.estatesgazette.com/blogs/...272-145743.jpg


So, Thames Hub Airport is the right terminology for those in the know..

I'm not surprised Heathrow has come out in front, an existing business has the motivation and skillset to lobby for the outcome they want. Not to mention the budget.

I do hope Davies does at least consider what we need 50, 100, 150 years from now. Heathrow might be the right "sticking plaster" solution, but that's not the sort of decision this country was built on, and not choosing a site with hub potential, and room for more in the future, would be a grave error.

Thankfully, not one I'll have to worry about, but it is one which the next generation will be hampered by.

That probably rules out anything built in an estuary/on the east coast due to the combination of rising sea levels and potential effect of storm surges

Or the BBC to Salford.

Oh hang on,

OK I agree with you T8