Donations raise eyebrows with Rishi Sunak expected to reject Climate Change Committee advice on banning expansions

Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Theresa May are among the Conservative MPs who have accepted more than £275,000 in donations-in-kind from airport operators, while Conservative Party HQ has also taken more than £13,500 in donations from airport operators. It comes as the government signals its backing for airport expansions, in contrast with advice from its own climate advisers that adding runways to Heathrow and Gatwick would be incompatible with the UK’s net zero goals.

  • tal@kbin.social
    3·
    1 year ago

    Hmm. Yeah, I see. WP says that everyone inland blocks airport construction or expansion near them.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Estuary_Airport

    A potential Thames Estuary Airport has been proposed at various times since the 1940s. London’s existing principal airports, Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and Luton are each sub-optimally located in various ways, such as being too close to built-up areas or requiring aircraft to fly low over London. In the case of Heathrow, the growth of air traffic has meant that the airport is operating at 98% capacity.

    Economic considerations have so far ruled out a new coastal airport, while political considerations have ruled out a new inland airport,[1] leaving planners with an as-yet-unresolved dilemma.

    By 1960, it was becoming apparent that further air capacity was needed. Stansted, a former military airfield in Essex, was proposed as a third airport in 1963. A Government White Paper endorsed Stansted in 1967 and in 1968, after an inconclusive public inquiry, the Government appointed Hon. Mr Justice Roskill to head the Commission on the Third London Airport (the “Roskill Commission”) to review sites for a third airport. Cublington in the Vale of Aylesbury was its chosen site.[4] It was seen offering the best access, as it was situated on the key London-Birmingham axis, it would be away from built-up areas and it would cost less than most of the alternatives.[5] The proposal met with strong opposition from local people and more broadly from politicians and middle-class voters which made it politically untenable.[6]

    The Thames Hub Airport (like Shivering Sands, nicknamed “Boris Island” after Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London[32]) is a proposal for a 4-runway hub airport to be located on the Isle of Grain in Kent.

    The Thames Hub Airport proposal was submitted to the UK’s Airports Commission by Foster+Partners in July 2013 as a proposed solution to the question of how the UK can maintain its global hub status. The future remained unclear as the option was not on the Commission’s original short list, but was still considered. It was finally rejected on grounds of cost (possibly as high as £100 billion) and environmental damage by the Airports Commission in an announcement made on 2 September 2014, leaving Gatwick and Heathrow as the remaining options.