Campaign is launched to sink Thames Estuary airport plan

Council leaders and wildlife experts have launched a campaign to halt the Mayor of London’s plans for an airport on the Thames Estuary.

The public and interested groups can now register their views and sign an online petition against the proposal, which has been outlined in a feasibility study published by the Mayor of London’s office today, Monday, 19 October 2009.

The online petition has been launched by Medway Council, Kent County Council and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and can be found at www.stopestuaryairport.co.uk.

The Leaders of Kent County Council and Medway Council, together with the RSPB, all condemn the London mayor’s recommendations for the estimated £40billion floating airport off the Kent coast.

The Leader of Medway Council Cllr Rodney Chambers said a similar airport scheme was defeated seven years ago thanks to public opposition and called on people to make their voices heard over the latest "pie in the sky" scheme.

He added: "As far as we are concerned, this is a case of ‘here we go again’.

"Seven years ago, we showed that a similar scheme based on Cliffe, which is on the Hoo Peninsula, was unworkable. We got that stopped and we shall do the same with this.

"The Thames Estuary airport would require huge unsightly highways to be built linking the airport to the motorway network, turning parts of Medway and Kent into a concrete jungle.

"The airport and the infrastructure needed to serve it would cost a ridiculous amount of money and it would devastate the environment, which includes Sites of Special Scientific Interest and internationally important areas to which hundreds of thousands of birds migrate annually.

"This scheme does not add up. It cannot be allowed to progress any further.

"&We successfully fought the Cliffe scheme in 2002 and call upon residents to log on to our campaign website and use our online petition to help campaign against this new pie in the sky scheme."

Paul Carter, the Leader of Kent County Council, said: "There is a growing consensus that the Estuary airport is undeliverable, unaffordable and unnecessary.

"We hope everyone will get behind this campaign. We saw off plans for an airport at Cliffe in 2002 and we will do it again.

"There is also no need for a third runway at Heathrow. What is needed is a review of the capacity of the existing airports and their transport links – Birmingham to Heathrow, Heathrow to Gatwick, London to Stansted and Manston."

"It makes sense to sweat the assets already available to us in the south-east. Kent International Airport at Manston, for example, has one of the longest runways in Europe. Manston could, at far less cost, be connected to the Channel Tunnel Rail Link domestic services for fast journey times from London to Kent. Manston could also handle six million passenger movements a year, which would boost the local economy in an area of high deprivation. Far more sensible in our view."

Chris Corrigan, RSPB Regional Director, said the RSPB was wholly opposed to the construction of an airport anywhere in the Thames Estuary because of the immense damage it would cause to the area’s internationally important wildlife and the wider environment.

He said: "The airport would damage or destroy huge areas of legally protected habitat. In addition to direct environmental destruction, a new airport would exacerbate climate change, which remains the greatest threat to biodiversity.

"As well as massive environmental damage, there could be a significant risk of bird-strike, as the Thames Estuary is a hub for hundreds of thousands of migrant birds. Even with an aggressive bird hazard management programme (such as shooting or scaring birds away), the bird-strike hazard would be up to 12 times higher than at any other major UK airport."