Boris favoures Foster Island - Heathrow expansion is "Crackers".

Lapin

This article is from the Daily Mail as it has the best images and graphics, although the story is being covered widly across all media in London. Some links below


Heathrow Airport should be bought with £15billion of public money before being dug up and turned into a new London borough with housing for 250,000 people, Boris Johnson argued today.
The Mayor of London said shutting down the world's busiest two-runway airport and replacing it with a 4.5 square mile new town creating 40,000 jobs would be a 'phenomenal opportunity' for Britain.
It came as Mr Johnson distanced himself from his pet project 'Boris Island', the four-runway super airport floating in the middle of the Thames estuary that he had wanted to replace Heathrow.
Instead he has backed a £65billion rival on the Isle of Grain in Kent, named 'Foster Island' after its architect Sir Norman Foster, which would serve 180 million passengers a year and 'knock the spots off' any other airport in the world, the Tory Mayor said.

Full Daily Mail Article.
BBC.
The Godwin's Law bit.
The Guardian.


As an occasional west London resident I'd prefer if Heathrow stayed where it was even if the place is becoming increasingly annoying to use. Although it would take years for the proposals above to come to fruition, I believe the complete closure of Heathrow would have a detrimental effect on every part of London west of Kensington. With Stansted and Gatwick already serving north and south east London respectively, the addition of a new hub replacing Heathrow out in the Thames estuary would tip the scales of investment massively to the east of London at the expense of the West side of town and beyond along the M3, M4 and M40 corridors.

From an Irish perspective, Dublin is the busiest European destination out of Heathrow and the third busiest overall. (after New York and Dubai). I don't know what percentage of the Dublin passengers use Heathrow as a transfer point and how many use it as a destination but if it were to close, i can't invisage the same numbers using Foster Island for visiting London.

Luton may benefit here as it will then become the closest airport to the traditional Irish heartlands of north and west London.

Having said that, I can't see any of the above proposals happening for at least a generation. Heathrow is currently in the middle of a multi billion pound redevelopment and there is already a good infrastructure in place to serve it.

I would advocate a second runway at Gatwick and a high speed link from there to Heathrow creating a joint hub. Both of these established airports are closer to each other (and Central London) than the proposed Foster Island is.

Stansted could remain the principal port for low cost airlines along with Luton, while charter carriers could be channeled through Luton or even a scaled down Foster Island to free up more space at Gatwick, which in turn could be used to ease some of the pressure in Heathrow.

A Dub in Glasgo

That is Boris Johnson (Conservative), Mayor of London for those who do not know who Boris is

afatbollix

Heathrow needs to expand but it cant and wont get the planning permission.

If I had 35 billion Id build the new airport as it could go 24 hours and no need to worry about expansion as much space as the can reclaim from the sea.



But before its built a high speed rail way needs to be build between Heathrow and Gatwick and you could use Gatwick to get the regional passengers into Heathrow

urajoke

afatbollix wrote: »

Heathrow needs to expand but it cant and wont get the planning permission.

If I had 35 billion Id build the new airport as it could go 24 hours and no need to worry about expansion as much space as the can reclaim from the sea.



But before its built a high speed rail way needs to be build between Heathrow and Gatwick and you could use Gatwick to get the regional passengers into Heathrow

It's not just Heathrow the airport 10000s of people live right beside Heathrow as they WORK there.

10000s of jobs are at Heathrow what happens them.

It would have a massively negative impact on the west London economy. The easiest most straight forward thing to do is build the third runway.

This airport idea is Boris's pet project it's crazy and very very expensive.

LXFlyer

The whole idea is pure nonsense.

The suggested site is over double the distance Heathrow is from central London, and is on the wrong side of the city.

Heathrow does not just serve London, but all the cities/towns to the west and south of it.

More pointless pontificating from Boris.

FWVT

lxflyer wrote: »

The whole idea is pure nonsense.

The whole idea of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London is pure nonsense!

Lapin

Wait till he becomes PM.

Razor44

FWVT wrote: »

The whole idea of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London is pure nonsense!

pish posh if you will.

it does seem a bit mental to buy LHR and then CLOSE it AND after buying it building a whole new international hub

pclancy

This is a country in the throws of serious financial issues and the mayor of its capital city is proposing throwing 65 billion pounds at a new airport while the dust has barely settled on Healthrow's 4 billion pound terminal 5. Insanity.

Way to save money there Borris.

This is also a guy that thinks there should be smoking areas brought back on airplanes as he reckons theres more risk of getting lung cancer from a BBQ then second hand fag smoke. :eek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlH-OZ5R9xM

el dude

Even if he does get this built, i'll only ever remember him for this.

brandon_flowers

Airports that previously/recently have been built outside large cities due to the existing infrastructure not being able to cope

Seoul Incheon - 50km west of Seoul - brilliant airport
Munich Airport - 40km north of Munich - brilliant airport
Narita Airport - 75km east of Tokyo - not as brilliant as the two above but a good airport
CDG - 30km north of Paris - kind of ****s up my argument as its a terrible airport but that's the French for you.

Cities that haven't bothered

London LHR - Nightmare for air traffic, car traffic and general access
New York JFK - Nightmare in every sense
LAX - impossible to expand, nightmare airport

Boris has a point that new built airports outside of cities are far better than trying to upgrade constantly at existing facilities. They are also more efficient in terms of cargo and people movement in my opinion.

I obviously have to agree with posters regarding the economy of West London and the jobs etc but at the end of the day these things never sway a decision. Overall financial benefit to all of London will sway the decision and if London is losing out on large revenue because of access then the airport will go ahead. Sorry to be so right wing about it.

Remember that London is not really in a recession, it accounts for almost a third of the British economy, it's the other two-thirds that is dragging the UK economy down.

markpb

pclancy wrote: »

This is a country in the throws of serious financial issues and the mayor of its capital city is proposing throwing 65 billion pounds at a new airport while the dust has barely settled on Healthrow's 4 billion pound terminal 5. Insanity.

Whatever about my thoughts on the pan itself, I think it's great to see a politician discussing a long term plan for infrastructure. This plan isn't going to happen, or even be started, in his term. It's not going to get him re-elected but he's still talking about it. He's not suggesting that they endlessly patch Heathrow to fix it's deficiencies. It makes for a refreshing change from the short-term thinking that people here (politicians and people alike) seem to suffer from.

Zonda999

Boris' plan is total bonkers IMHO and I don;t think it will ever happen. Honestly, IF Heathrow cannot be expanded, then I think the large scale expansion of Stansted has some merit. A second runway at Gatwick is definitely worth considering also and improved links between LHR and Gatwick should be established.

Kuala Lumpur is another fine airport IMO, was there three times in the last month. Its 60km from KL Central but the express train to there only takes 25 minutes

Lapin

Its looking like a race between Heathrow and Gatwick for expansion prospects as Stansted is ruled out and 'Boris Island' is paid lip service.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/boris-island-marooned-as-heathrow-and-gatwick-backed-for-new-runway-in-airports-commission-report-9009537.html

IngazZagni

I can't understand yet how a Gatwick expansion would work. It said the new runaway would be south of the current runway but the terminals are north of the existing runway. This would drastically reduce the efficiency of the second runway and greatly increase taxi times having a knock on effect for the cost to operate at the airfield. At least the runway would be sufficiently separated allowing parallel approaches unlike MAN's useless RW 05R.

The Heathrow expansion to the northwest makes sense. Nothing to add to that.

I think Stansted is well suited for an additional runway but it's only currently at 50% capacity. Land is already bought for a second parallel runway to the east of the current runway and terminal which would make it an ideal layout. Noise impact would be minimal too. I laughed at the suggestion that investment at Stansted would be a negative because it's already in an affluent area. Biggest issue would be improving transport links to the city. If expansion doesn't work out of LGW or LHR, STN is the next best option I think.

I won't even comment on Borris island or the other suggestion. Just madness.

Davidth88

Gatwick ..... they built the second terminal where the only logical place for a second runway . This was to appease the locals. Stansted should be expanded tbh. I am old enough to remember the Maplin Sands idea which was to a great extent the same as Boris Isle. Heathrow is full .... you can't put a third runway there , I was born and brought up 5 miles north of Lhr so I know how important the airport is to the local economy.

kub

This guy is only seeking a monument to himself, a major gigantic airport would fit his ego nicely.