Thames Hub Airport
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Thames Hub Airport was a proposed platform-based
hub airport An airline hub or hub airport is an airport used by one or more airlines to concentrate passenger traffic and flight operations. Hubs serve as transfer (or stop-over) points to help get passengers to their final destination. It is part of the ...
located on the
Isle of Grain Isle of Grain (Old English ''Greon'', meaning gravel) is a village and the easternmost point of the Hoo Peninsula within the district of Medway in Kent, south-east England. No longer an island and now forming part of the peninsula, the area i ...
in the
Thames Estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...
in
Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, whose development has been led by the architect
Lord Foster Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or a ...
. The idea for the airport was originally included within the
Thames Hub integrated infrastructure vision The Thames Hub is a proposal for a new approach to integrated infrastructure development that combines rail, Intermodal freight transport, intermodal freight logistics, aviation, Tidal power, tidal renewable energy and its Electric power transm ...
, and the idea of some kind of airport in the Thames Estuary has been discussed since the 1970s. The case for developing the airport as a solution to the question of how the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
can maintain its global hub aviation status was submitted, alongside many other solutions, to the UK’s
Airports Commission The Airports Commission was an independent commission established in September 2012 by the Government of the United Kingdom to consider how the UK can "maintain its status as an international hub for aviation and immediate actions to improve th ...
in July 2013 by Foster+Partners. In December 2013 the Commission announced its shortlist of proposals for expanding Britain's airports. The Thames Estuary concept was not included on the initial shortlist. In September 2014 the Committee concluded that the Thames Hub proposal had "substantial disadvantages that collectively outweighed its potential benefits and that it therefore did not represent a credible option for shortlisting". They described it as "unfeasibly expensive, highly problematic in environmental terms and would be hugely disruptive for many businesses and communities". It remained off the shortlist.


Background


Expansion of London’s airports

Expanding the capacity of London's airports to meet growing demand is an issue that successive governments have failed to address since the 1950s. In recent years it has been widely claimed that, to provide the level of connectivity that the UK and London require to maintain their global hub status, the capital requires additional hub airport capacity. Proponents of this idea, such as business lobby groups and the aviation industry, believe that further expansion of London's point-to-point airports, such as
Gatwick Gatwick Airport (), also known as London Gatwick , is a major international airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, south of Central London. In 2021, Gatwick was the third-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after H ...
and
Stansted London Stansted Airport is a tertiary international airport serving London, England, United Kingdom. It is located near Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, England, northeast of Central London. London Stansted serves over 160 destinations acro ...
, would not address London's claimed need for extra hub capacity. However, some transport experts and many politicians and organisations dispute the need for a single huge hub. London's largest and only hub airport,
Heathrow Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others bei ...
, has been operating at almost full capacity since 1993. The two-runway airport is less than 20 miles west of Central London and is completely surrounded by
urban development Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of peop ...
, leaving no room to build additional runways to cater for additional air passenger demand. Due to the UK's prevailing southwesterly winds, aircraft predominately approach Heathrow over Central London. As a result, over 750,000 people live within the 55 dB aircraft noise contour and suffer from aircraft noise pollution.


Thames Estuary Airport

A proposed solution to the need to expand London's hub airport capacity, which has been studied on a number of occasions, is to build a new hub airport in the
Thames Estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...
. Following the work of the Roskill Commission, in 1973 the Maplin Airport Development Act was passed to enable an airport to be built at
Maplin Sands The Maplin Sands are mudflats on the northern bank of the Thames estuary, off Foulness Island, near Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England, though they actually lie within the neighbouring borough of Rochford. They form a part of the Essex Estuarie ...
. However the project was cancelled in 1974. In 2009, London Mayor
Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
announced his support for a proposed new offshore airport in the Thames Estuary at Shivering Sands that had been developed by former
Crossrail Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway l ...
chairman Doug Oakervee. At the time, the idea of an estuary airport was lampooned by the press.


Thames Hub integrated infrastructure vision

In November 2011
Lord Foster Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or a ...
launched the concept of the
Thames Hub integrated infrastructure vision The Thames Hub is a proposal for a new approach to integrated infrastructure development that combines rail, Intermodal freight transport, intermodal freight logistics, aviation, Tidal power, tidal renewable energy and its Electric power transm ...
– an integrated infrastructure development in the
Thames Estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...
which included a high-speed rail line, a combined Thames road and rail crossing and a flood protection barrier incorporating Renewable energy generation#Hydropower renewable energy generation, and a new 150 million passenger hub airport.


Proposal

The Thames Hub Airport would have been built on a platform, partly in the
Thames Estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...
but attached to the land, on the
Isle of Grain Isle of Grain (Old English ''Greon'', meaning gravel) is a village and the easternmost point of the Hoo Peninsula within the district of Medway in Kent, south-east England. No longer an island and now forming part of the peninsula, the area i ...
in Kent. It would have had four runways, located as two parallel pairs, and would have had a handling capacity of 110 million passengers per annum (mppa), expandable to 150 mppa.


Advantages

*Significant reduction in the number of people impacted by noise because aircraft would predominantly approach the airport over water *24-hour operation (not possible at Heathrow) *Reduced air-pollution impacts - aircraft emissions disperse over water *Opportunity to redevelop the Heathrow site for housing and a new commercial centre


Challenges

*High potential for bird strikes *Relocation of airport staff and businesses that are currently located around Heathrow *The nearby wreck of the ''
SS Richard Montgomery SS ''Richard Montgomery'' was an American Liberty cargo ship built during World War II. She was named after Richard Montgomery, an Irish officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War. The ship was wrecked on the Nore sandbank in the Th ...
'' contains of explosives *Nearby
liquefied natural gas terminal A liquefied natural gas terminal is a facility for managing the import and/or export of liquefied natural gas (LNG). It comprises equipment for loading and unloading of LNG cargo to/from ocean-going tankers, for transfer across the site, liquefac ...
s *The airspace is already crowded. On 13 April 2012, Richard Deakin, the head of
National Air Traffic Services NATS Holdings, formerly National Air Traffic Services and commonly referred to as NATS, is the main air navigation service provider in the United Kingdom. It inherited the traditions of UK air traffic control, which (founded over Croydon Air ...
, commented that "the very worst spot you could put an airport is just about here". He continued, "We’re a little surprised that none of the architects thought it worthwhile to have a little chat." *Due to the proximity to water in a temperate climate, fog could be an issue which reduces the capacity for aircraft to land. The Met Office provided a study that stated there would be three times as much fog than at London Heathrow over the course of the year.


Reaction

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
, the previous
Mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first directly elected mayor in the United Kingdom. The current m ...
, was a major supporter of a new airport in the Thames Estuary, so much so that the project was even called "Boris Island" by some opponents.
Farrells Farrells is an architecture and urban design firm founded by British architect-planner Terry Farrell with offices in London, Manchester, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. The firm has won numerous awards for their characteristic mixed-use schemes, tr ...
, another London architecture firm, advocates expanding Gatwick Airport instead, providing a second runway and reconstructing the passenger terminal. Sir Terry Farrell claims this could be "the world’s most efficient two-runway airport", a quicker and cheaper solution, and that it would "turbocharge" the economy of South London. Gatwick Airport set up a website called "Gatwick Obviously" to promote this idea, although a 1979 legal agreement with West Sussex County Council prohibited construction of a new runway before 2019.


References


External links


Thames Hub Airport proposal
{{authority control Proposed airports in the London region Aviation in the United Kingdom Aviation and the environment Proposed transport infrastructure in South East England Proposed airports in the United Kingdom