I presume you will give it an airport code of KYN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cublington

I'm not sure KYN is the right solution. Do you seriously advocate raping some of the most attractive parts of the English Countryside to accommodate air travel? It'll never fly.

We're talking well into the 2020s (at least) before a new airport becomes operational. Crossrail and HS2 will already be built.

Unless you live in the immediate vicinity of Heathrow or Paddington, travel times to the Thames Airport will not be significantly longer than they are today. There will probably be direct service on Crossrail. And certainly an express high-speed service from St. Pancras (under 25 minutes) And, possibly also high speed services from a new hub station at Old Oak Common, over the HS2-HS1 connection.

Excellent connectivity is crucial to any hub airport plan. It won't be "in the middle of nowhere".

I think it's only been in the last decade or so that Heathrow has had its own fast rail link.

Did the tube always go to LHR?

And the M4 flyover will probably have to ripped down and rebuilt at some stage; again, that wasn't there when LHR's original terminal was constructed.

Since the late 1970s.

Neither HS2 nor Crossrail will solve the problem for most of us here at the West side of Central London. Boris Airport will never be built, but if it were it would require additional high speed transport across Central London, which is going to be financially unattainable.

Just bulldozer over Slough and expand Heathrow in that direction. ;) :D

Actually, yes. It's amazing how geography hasn't changed in 40 years. And, since ruling out boris island because of the fog and birds, the best option is KYN or close by.

Also, if the 1970s commission were examining options today, in light of HS2, I think this site would be the clear favorite.

If a high-speed HS2-HS1 connection is built, then you have your east-west high speed line.

Current HS2 plans unfortunately do not include this link (rather, just a low speed connection via the existing North London line) but it is not financially unattainable at all. This would almost certainly happen as part of a hub airport plan.

Not at all. At best that's a solution for those in North London. Won't help anyone in my part of London.

There's no chance at all of building a new hub airport anywhere near Bucks!

Take the level of opposition to HS2 in that area, and multiply it by about 1000.

As I said before, just bulldozer over Slough, no one could possibly object to that. ;) :D

At least allow us to move offices first, then. ;) :) (for me preferably somewhere further clockwise around the M25...)

Mayfair is much nice for offices. :D

But the real question is, are there more or less contested tory voters in that area, or along Heathrow's approach paths.

If it were up to me, there'd be a national referendum with 3 potential sites, the public would choose, and the legislation arranging for that referendum would mandate construction and cut off the many avenues to delay and kill a project, planning etc.

That's the problem the IPC was meant to solve - to remove overdue local influence from schemes of national importance. Of course the Coalition reversed that immediately as soon as they took office and championed localism - and that meant that nationally important schemes are now held up as political footballs :(

Sadly, the Coalition were too naive and inexperienced to be able to see the outcome of that reversal - despite the fact the IPC had been brought in as a result of experience within the planning system, with most parties with experience knowing that the planning system was not good at dealing with very large scale projects of national importance, but which have a large effect on a local area.