Sometimes the sheer madness of modern life beggars belief. When the proposal to build a third runway at Heathrow was ruled to be illegal by the court of appeal a couple of weeks ago, there was plenty of talk about uppity judges exceeding their powers. That’s certainly an unwelcome trend worth exploring, but it’s utterly trivial compared to the bigger question here: why are we even considering an expansion of Heathrow? And why are journalists who ought to know better bleating that a third runway is essential to a ‘global Britain’ as if a major infrastructure project were a political gesture rather than a response to an essential need?
Because Heathrow Airport is in the wrong place and a third runway won’t make it more competitive – only more dangerous. Even contemplating the expansion of an airport with approach flight paths that lie low over London’s densely populated suburbs is surely insane. Quite apart from the million or so more people who would be affected by severe noise pollution, the increased risk of a crash on take-off or landing – which might incur many casualties on the ground – makes the whole idea totally unacceptable. It would only take one such crash to change attitudes completely – though heaven forbid that such a thing should happen, of course.
A new island airport off the south-east coast would eliminate this risk and have many other benefits. Since bird strikes are bad for aeroplanes and aeroplanes are bad for birds, the Thames Estuary proposals should be ruled out – but the Goodwin Sands concept looks like a good bet. The Sands, off the Kent coast and exposed at low tide, are not a breeding ground for birds and are not near any nature conservation areas or shipping lanes.
Their suitability as a basis for an island airport has been identified by Beckett Rankine, a leading British firm of marine consulting engineers, with extensive experience in designing land reclamation, coastal defence and harbour construction developments. The project would involve enclosing the Sands and stabilising them within a sea wall using techniques perfected in Holland The sea wall would need to be taller than the highest predicted tide – plus a generous margin – but only the low lying areas of the Sands would need to be built up to achieve a given level. Thus the amount of infill material required would be relatively modest, whereas the other island projects would require prodigious quantities of it. Almost the only environmental constraint would be catering for six protected historic wrecks which would need either to be conserved in situ or removed and conserved elsewhere.
Three runways are envisaged at first, inclined at 30 degrees east of north for alignment with the prevailing winds, but expansion to four or five would be easy. As for the other island projects, tunnels would be needed to create road and high-speed rail links, but the site could also be given terminals for high-speed ferries from Dover and Ramsgate.
It’s true that the cost would be colossal – £40 billion was estimated when the proposal was formulated eight years ago, so maybe as much as HS2’s £107 billion today. But just think of the benefits. It would completely eliminate the risk of a crash, on take-off or landing, from damaging densely populated suburbs. It would lead to an enormous reduction in the number of people subjected to noise and air pollution. It would bring thousands of new jobs to Kent. And it would release large areas of land around Heathrow upon which affordable housing could be built.
There are, however, just a couple of problems here. First, due to decades of gormless globalisation, we have allowed Heathrow to fall into foreign hands – it’s largely owned by a Spanish company, Ferrovial – so its replacement by a state-funded alternative would create a major conflict of interest. It’s just one example of the utter folly of selling off our family silver, but that’s another story.
The second problem is that we seem to have lost the knack of completing major infrastructure projects on time and to budget – but that’s another story, too.
Grumpy Greybeard 