Boris Island

[MX7]

KTF said:

But if you are visiting your international headquarters, wouldn't you be getting in a cab/the car thats been sent to pick you up at the airport and expensing it back rather than mixing with the great unwashed on public transport?

If time is money, why would you get a cab from any airport? Heathrow to the city could take 4 hours if you're unlucky.

[mattnunn]

Here is my plan, build a great big fk off airport with in Woodford Halse (Sorry if you live there) and high speed dedicated train links, voila... at 200mph you'll never be more than 45 minutes from all of Englands top cities (except perhaps Leeds), it's not a big fking country ffs



Nice new link motorway between the M1, M40 and M5 from Luton to Cheltenham, job jobbed, no doubt could all be paid for by selling the land Heathrow is on for housing.

[mcdjl]

mattnunn said:

Here is my plan, build a great big fk off airport with in Woodford Halse (Sorry if you live there) and high speed dedicated train links, voila... at 200mph you'll never be more than 45 minutes from all of Englands top cities (except perhaps Leeds), it's not a big fking country ffs



Nice new link motorway between the M1, M40 and M5 from Luton to Cheltenham, job jobbed, no doubt could all be paid for by selling the land Heathrow is on for housing.

See where your line good between derby and nottingham? That's right on the m1, through an existing airport that's open 24 hours and right on the proposed hs2, as well as having a massive rail freight depot proposed within a mile or so.....move your hub and you could be on a winner.

[NST]

ALot of people talk about the companies operating in and around the M3/M4 corridor. Most of the industries I work in are seeing those companies are closing the head quaters or sites in the area or reducing the head count significantly.

I have had the misfortune to use T5 2 twice in 6 weeks. both times i have been left unimpressed. someone need to tell me why T5 is so great. T5 is a missed opportunity. Getting into T5 at 6:15 AM using a my Driver was a nightmere. bnoth times I was sitting in traffic for 30-40mins. my offices are in the west end, city, and hertfordshire. getting to central london is rubbish (City is particularly horrible).

I am all for Boris island. Very fast links to central london (30mins), links to HS1 and HS2. allow for 24 hr flights. have the flight paths away from the south east totally. air quality will improve which will mean less stress on the NHS. Heathrow air quality is disgusting. start building it now and the whole airport can be done in 7 years
simple

[toppstuff]

Every time I see a senior manager from Heathrow on the telly, all I see is rabid self-interest on the part of the owners rather than a sincere belief that they are the right option.

I am with Boris on this.

Heathrow is and always has been in the wrong place.

The notion of needing access to the Thames valley is nonsense - in the big scheme of things it counts for little IMO and is just as easily countered by the notion that other travellers will want access to the City and Canary Wharf. And travellers using London as a hub really don't care where the shopping mall they are dropped into is situated before they get a connecting flight.

Be brave. Pick the right option. Follow the pragmatic good sense of the various new airports in Asia and build the damn thing to the east of the city and out into the sea.

And do it now.

[greygoose]

toppstuff said:

Every time I see a senior manager from Heathrow on the telly, all I see is rabid self-interest on the part of the owners rather than a sincere belief that they are the right option.

I am with Boris on this.

Heathrow is and always has been in the wrong place.

The notion of needing access to the Thames valley is nonsense - in the big scheme of things it counts for little IMO and is just as easily countered by the notion that other travellers will want access to the City and Canary Wharf. And travellers using London as a hub really don't care where the shopping mall they are dropped into is situated before they get a connecting flight.

Be brave. Pick the right option. Follow the pragmatic good sense of the various new airports in Asia and build the damn thing to the east of the city and out into the sea.

And do it now.

I agree, sadly the chances of anything happening soon are remote.

[109er]

All those for Boris Island a question for you:

How do you intend getting it built?

You cant do it from the river (tidal range is 18mtrs)

The only roads in and out - see below.

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=hoo&ll=51.448...

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=hoo&ll=51.451...

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=hoo&ll=51.460...

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=hoo&ll=51.458...

Not exactly suitable for heavy construction vehicles.

Edited by 109er on Wednesday 18th December 12:15

Edited by 109er on Wednesday 18th December 12:16

[toppstuff]

109er said:

All those for Borris Island a question for you:

How do you intend getting it built?

You cant do it from the river (tidal range is 18mtrs)

The only roads in and out - see below.

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=hoo&ll=51.448...

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=hoo&ll=51.451...

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=hoo&ll=51.460...

Not exactly suitable for heavy construction vehicles.

Building some access roads off the motorway network, while significant, is appropriate given the overall scale of the project.

And even then, the long term benefits massively out way the short term advantage of LHR.

Picking LHR is the activity of the timid and the weak, in the thrall of the likes of Ferrovial.

LHR is so unsuitable, if it happens it can only be in the rejection of good sense and the pursuit of grubby compromise in darkened rooms. That is the only possible explanation for such a dumb idea.

The UK is going to have to live with this decision for generations. Do it right. Don't compromise. Future generations will thank us for it.

[bad company]

Surely LHR is so big already that any further expansion has to be elsewhere. As you know I favour Stansted but if not surely it has to be Gatwick which is much cheaper than 'Boris Island'.

[hidetheelephants]

109er said:

All those for Boris Island a question for you:

How do you intend getting it built?

You cant do it from the river (tidal range is 18mtrs)

The only roads in and out - see below.

Not exactly suitable for heavy construction vehicles.

How do you think they built Kansai and Chek Lap Kok? They had no physical link to the mainland at all when started, never mind roads, yet miraculously they exist. This is because when you're reclaiming this amount of land it makes a load of sense to bring the infill to the site on barges or ships. There's nothing difficult about it, it's all existing technology, and because your construction project isn't on the site of the busiest airport in the world it's a lot less awkward.

There's synergy in Boris Island; the Thames barrier needs replacing with a super duper Thames barrier 2 soon, so why not combine the two projects in one?

[JagLover]

bad company said:

Surely LHR is so big already that any further expansion has to be elsewhere. As you know I favour Stansted but if not surely it has to be Gatwick which is much cheaper than 'Boris Island'.

"so big"!

It only has two runaways. In contrast take a look at Schiphol or Charles de Gaulle that is who Heathrow is competing against not Gatwick.

[bad company]

JagLover said:

"so big"!

It only has two runaways. In contrast take a look at Schiphol or Charles de Gaulle that is who Heathrow is competing against not Gatwick.

I'm not saying that LHR should be closed just that further expansion should be elsewhere.

[Collectingbrass]

MX7 said:

bad company said:

Because you can get into the City in a fraction of the time.

Why would you do that if your connection flight leaves from Heathrow? I'm not even it's true anyway. From Stansted you go to Liverpool Street, and you are a couple of miles away from the city. How long does it take to travel from Heathrow to the city? It would be just as long, if not longer, and if you're really in a hurry you'd fly to City if you departed from Europe.

If you're flying to London I don't think there's too much difference between Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted. While I understand that a central hub would be preferable if you have an outgoing flight to make, I guess that there are many people coming here to visit the UK. It's irrelevant where they land.

I still question the value of being Europe's international hub. It seems to me that other countries are far more suited to it, given the land they have available. I honestly know very little about it, but it just feels like a vanity project to me. Is it more than a holding bay where Costa Coffee and Mcdonald's ply their trade? I've done a few stop-overs, and I didn't recognise any significant benefit to the airports.

I also think that the benefits may be overstated. I find it hard to believe that the UK is going to lose significant business because it may take 10 minutes extra to get from Gatwick to London, and given that it will cost far more than is presently predicted, and if " The extra runway could be worth up to £30bn to the entire country over 60 years", which I actually think is very doubtful, and given that the return needs to be spread over 60 years, it's actually quite insignificant compared to estimated cost to building it when you've multiplied it by whatever number the contractors dream up.

My feeling is that the money would be far better spent, if the government are that keen to spend, on multiple smaller transport projects. Links from regional ports and stations. It'll spread the wealth more evenly, which I think may be one of the government motivations, and could be far more cost effective than putting it all on red.

My other concern is who pays for this? Heathrow will profit, but that's a private company. Are they really going to stump up all the cash?

Does anyone here have any experience of losing business because someone couldn't get a flight? I think it's a myth, much like the myth that Manchester will prosper because it'll take 30 minutes, or whatever, less time to get from London to Manchester on HS2. If they need to be there by 10:00, all it means is that they can catch a train that leaves 30 minutes later.

I really so zero value in this.

As I said earlier in the thread (edited for punctuation & an update):

People really need to take a long look at how the air transport business works and why, as has been said earlier, airlines pay far over book for landing slots at LHR and why they will simply not got to Gatwick, Standstead or elsewhere. I work at Heathrow in BAA's development (aka construction) arm so I have some inside industry knowledge and a personnel interest in this debate.

On the question of a large single hub airport or distributed smaller hub airports in principle, as a business scheduled airlines barely make profit, and certainly make a loss on each pax flying on a single leg journey in economy - and we know what happend to British Leyland when they managed their business like that. It is only transfers traffic that makes each point to point journey finanically viable for an airline and intercontinental transfers pax have many alternatives to the UK. These are not just western european airports (CDG, Schipol, Frankfurt) but the new hubs in the middle east such as Doha and Dubai. Airlines simply will not service new destintations in the BRICs countries from the UK if they cannot attract the transfers traffic, to do that in the face of these choices the hub needs to be highly efficient. LHR's minimum connect time for transfers pax is 45 minutes, which is limited by meeting the FAA / Homeland security standards for baggage; adding an hour's travel time, or more, from one airport to another will destroy the UK as an airline hub and we will not get the flights to BRICs we need for the greater econonmic good. Regardless of where it is, air transport business economics and the passenger market forces dictate that we need a single airport as the Hub, where ever we put it.

As to where the hub airport should be, if we were to be communist about it for a moment, where would we now build a hub airport if we were starting from scratch? From a build / land cost and noise impact point of view this would be in the Thames estuary but that is to ignore the reality of life and its pull to the west. It is a fact of life that the economic, political, population and desirable location centres of gravity for the UK have developed to the west side of London, from the square mile to the Thames Valley. Obviously this is because the global corporations wanted easiest possible access to LHR but LGR, STN and any scheme Boris is championing today are all too far east and south to realistically service this pull & we are left with building our hub somewhere west of London. The UK simply can't afford a new hub airport, whereever it is. We don't have the money nor do we have the will to pay the taxes to fund it. Yes the Chinese might pay for it but at what cost - especially polictically? As Sherlock says eliminting the impossible leaves you with the solution as improbable as it may be. LHR has its faults and if we were starting again we wouldn't start from here but the only realistic & real world answer is to expand it further.

We need to get started too, we are already being left behind.

[Collectingbrass]

hidetheelephants said:

IanV12 said:

expanding heathrow is mad- it is running at 98% capacity- time for a new plan.

How long did the airport similar to Boris island in Hong Kong (designed by Norman Foster) take to plan and build? - we will have endless public enquires and nothing will get done until it is too late

Kansai airport took 7 years from tipping the first load of infill to landing the first plane. Chek Lap Kok took 7 years from first tip to first landing as well. In both cases further construction dragged on for a while afterwards and there were remedial works for subsidence, but it all went fairly smoothly considering.

T5 took 30 years from first mention to first flight, but it only took 5 years to build. The Engineers in this country can get it done if the politicians and NIMBYs would only let us.

[Murph7355]

Was the West of the UK especially more "desirable" before LHR took prominence? If an airport in the Estuary was built, is it not possible that an equal pull over the next 50yrs could happen towards the East?

It strikes me that the likes of Dubai and Doha are betting on that happening to them, so why not the East of the UK? Perhaps it would be beneficial in more ways than one, spreading the desirability blanket? Or even move it oop North...that could have additional benefits too.

Ref transfers, I always scratch my head at how this actually works and how it turns something barely viable into a cash cow. Is there an explanation anywhere? Same/partner airlines shipping people in/out I can broadly get, encouraging people to take longer haul (presumably more profitable?) flights? But one airline to another? Why is that beneficial to either (and more importantly to UK ltd) necessarily?

Also, how much GDP can be attributed to these hubs both here and in other nations with "hub" airports? How much additional revenue do places LHR, CDG, Schiphol etc etc genuinely bring in. Are their independent figures available anywhere? Specifically around the transfer business as one would assume that the majority of people who come here for tourism would still do so regardless of how big our hub airport is (unless that's the big deal about hubs and we fear losing 80% of our tourist trade overnight....to Doha/Dubai!).

Personally I think having it somewhere where we can avoid the need for flights over major metropolitan areas would be sensible if we have a choice to do so....

[bobbylondonuk]

What we NEED is a megastructure! 6 runway, 24hour airport with highspeed transport links by rail, road and sea. This will move people and freight fast from all over uk and even western EU.

if we are going to spend big money, dream big and destroy the competition in one shot....I hate the usual blue tack approach. Either get it done in one go or dont bother.

[Fittster]

NST said:

I am all for Boris island. Very fast links to central london (30mins), links to HS1 and HS2.

How does Boris island connect to HS2?

[NST]

why not? why not have connections that go straight to london Euston?

Connections to Ebbsfleet, Stratford, KingX, Euston would be ideal. If Waterloo can be opened up again to cater for that part of london that would be even better.

at somepoint Cross rail will become a reality, HS1 takes them straight to stratford, cross rail can passengers straight to the the Warf' City or west end quickly. But people need to make decisions now. not in 2 years time and then consultation for another 10years.

The GCC countries will become very major players in a very short period of time. UK needs to just accept the only real sensible option for a 50+ year plan is a new hub with very fast links, 24 hr flights, freight capability, and away from from the south east. the most important bit is public transport. get that working that will be mean less cars travelling to and from the airport. make the transport viable. HEathrow express is the most expensive pile of pants i have every seen.
More importantly, keep the layout of the air port simple. Maybe i just look nice nice old man, the number of people that asked me for directions in T5 in getting to the gates etc was a surprise.. the layout of T5 is terrible.

[109er]

Fittster said:

NST said:

I am all for Boris island. Very fast links to central london (30mins), links to HS1 and HS2.

How does Boris island connect to HS2?

Don't know about HS2, wrong side of London for Boris Island and as to a link up
with HS1, how would you incorporate a commuter service (due to numbers of flights)
onto a high speed service, unless you put in a station/junction but, that turns HS1
into a commuter service and defeats the object of 'High Speed'.

Closest point for a connection would be 'Rochester And Cobham Park Golf Club'
or 'Shorne Woods Country Park' and I don't think that would go down well.

Edited by 109er on Wednesday 18th December 14:33

[p2c]

Murph7355 said:

Was the West of the UK especially more "desirable" before LHR took prominence? If an airport in the Estuary was built, is it not possible that an equal pull over the next 50yrs could happen towards the East?

It strikes me that the likes of Dubai and Doha are betting on that happening to them, so why not the East of the UK? Perhaps it would be beneficial in more ways than one, spreading the desirability blanket? Or even move it oop North...that could have additional benefits too.

Ref transfers, I always scratch my head at how this actually works and how it turns something barely viable into a cash cow. Is there an explanation anywhere? Same/partner airlines shipping people in/out I can broadly get, encouraging people to take longer haul (presumably more profitable?) flights? But one airline to another? Why is that beneficial to either (and more importantly to UK ltd) necessarily?

Also, how much GDP can be attributed to these hubs both here and in other nations with "hub" airports? How much additional revenue do places LHR, CDG, Schiphol etc etc genuinely bring in. Are their independent figures available anywhere? Specifically around the transfer business as one would assume that the majority of people who come here for tourism would still do so regardless of how big our hub airport is (unless that's the big deal about hubs and we fear losing 80% of our tourist trade overnight....to Doha/Dubai!).

Personally I think having it somewhere where we can avoid the need for flights over major metropolitan areas would be sensible if we have a choice to do so....

The trouble with developing around boris island is two fold, A good chunk of it is in the north sea so not really viable. The existing HQ's that benefit from international links are M4, M3 based so if the have to move, why wouldn't they go to china et al rather than Kent.

The benefits of the hub in the UK and transfer passengers is that the person flying from NYC to Dubai, fly's through the UK and generates demand for a NYC-UK flight and UK-Dubai flight, all of these add up and mean the home of the hub has lots of flights to lots of places, that benefits us as locals as we can fly all over the world easily and it attracts business as they can do the same. Without the transfer passengers we would end up with Manchester, Glasgow (pick the regional airport of your choice) you can fly direct to a few places, but for a lot you have to go to LHR first, but if LHR isn't there your off to Amsterdam, Madrid etc, Not a big deal if your already on a spoke from the hub, but we lose those business that want to be close to a hub. We are also in an ideal place to pick up the transatlantic traffic and forward it onto Europe and beyond, we have a marginal advantage (maybe) over Amsterdam on distance but if the last 40 minutes of the flight is going in circles that's out the window. On that note as for the environmental and pollution aspects, Get the aircraft on the ground sooner and they wont be polluting as much!