Another Blow to Boris Island

Another obstacle to London mayor Boris Johnson's plans for getting a new 'hub' airport in or around the Thames Estuary has today appeared, when Environment minister Caroline Spelman announced twelve new "Nature Improvement Areas", which include the Thames Marshes right up to the coast of the Isle of Grain.

That seems to cover most of the bases...

This looks set to scupper some – probably all – of the proposals so far put forward for this airport, with little if any remaining scope to devise yet another variation that could be accommodated within this new situation regarding the Thames Marshes.

Although it isn't over until it's over, today's news is encouraging for those who are opposed to the whole Estuary Airport idea. I have always been near-enough certain that it wouldn't go ahead anyway, as what I have written here previously makes clear enough, and this evening I am if anything even firmer in that view.

As I have mentioned before: we have to go through all the processes of a review if the idea is to be permanently, authoritatively killed off. All one need do is put oneself in the other guy's shoes and realise what our reaction would be to anything less if we were pushing for it to go ahead, in order to see exactly why it has to be done this way.

There are those who will spin it for their own party political ends – but those are the individuals and parties who always put their own interests ahead of the public/community good, so their all too obvious spin can be discounted. Let's do this properly and secure the right result!