Estuary Airport – Epilogue?

I have been keeping a weather eye out during the day for any significant news on the airport capacity consultation that began today.

If what has appeared in the media this evening turns out to be correct, at least the "Boris island" estuary airport idea is dead. This opening paragraph from a piece in The Guardian this evening suggests an own goal by the London Mayor...

"Downing Street told Boris Johnson on Wednesday that he had killed off any moves towards an airport in the Thames estuary ahead of the next general election after an announcement by the London mayor was seized on by the Liberal Democrats."

It seems to hang on a veto by Deputy PM and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, although it was actually said by another Lib Dem, the Transport Minister Norman Baker.

I suspect that the real story behind this is much more than just that, though; and I have said all along that I didn't think it was likely that the Government would go along with Boris' idea. Strategically it'd be foolhardy to put all one's egges in a single basket that costs so much that there wouldn't be any resources left for anywhere else in the airport network. All it needs then is a major incident or something else to make the new airport unuusable for any period of time and it all falls apart.

It is far better to distribute extra capacity around the country, hub or no hub. Birminham, Manston, Gatwick and Stansted all have spare capacity and those such as Birmingham in particular long for the extra traffic. Inevitably there are objectors to those ideas, but they do make sense, and those four are all within easy reach of central London, with Birmingham also being much more central to this oddly-shaped nation of ours.

Let us hope that such a strategic and intelligent approach is decided upon in due course, and that Boris Island really will not happen. Okay, it is said that such a project will not be approved this side of the next (general) election – but in practice that means permanently, as decisions will have been taken long before that and the finalised plans will have commenced implementation.

Although it is too early to even think about celebrating, the signs are promising. Meanwhile, our local MPs and Medway Council leader have continued to actively oppose what had been proposed by the London Mayor and others, and there are further moves already in train, such as a joint letter from all Medway Council's political groups to the Transport Secretary, as reported by Alan W Collins.

The story isn't over, but it looks like there will most likely be a happy ending to it.