London mayor Boris Johnson has put together a team of consultants to draw up plans for three possible sites he has identified for a new hub airport.
Johnson and Transport for London have identified three potential sites for a new four-runway hub – expanding Stansted plus two locations in the Thames estuary, including the site of the so-called 'Boris Island' named after the mayor himself. But they have ruled out further expansion at Heathrow.
The mayor’s team of consultants includes architects Zaha Hadid and Pascall & Watson, who designed Heathrow’s Terminal 5, engineers WS Atkins, business advisers Ernst & Young and economic research group Oxford Economics.
Feasibility studies on the three locations are expected to start next month and be completed by October for submission to the Davies Commission which is looking into the issue of hub capacity for the government.
Johnson, speaking before the House of Commons transport committee yesterday (February 11), said: “The objective is to find a solution that gives us a four-runway hub – preferably a 24-hour four-runway hub.
“This is what our competitors are going for and, in many cases, already have. We think these three options are best able to produce that solution. We want to whittle these three down to one or possibly two options.”
Johnson said the prospect of Heathrow ever having four runways was “inconceivable” because it would cause “immense political grief and colossal noise pollution”. Johnson has long made his opposition known to a third runway at Heathrow.
He added that any new hub airport would “take at least a couple of decades” to complete, with an overall cost of £70-£80 billion including new rail and road links.
“A large proportion would come from the private sector – an airport is a very bankable asset,” Johnson told MPs. “Around £25 billion would come from the public finances for the road and rail infrastructure.”
He said that he was convinced that all of the three potential new hubs could be reached from central London within the “golden 45 minutes” by public transport.
Johnson said a new hub airport would not necessarily mean the closing of Heathrow as an airport although it could not act as a competing hub with any new facility.
“I don’t think Heathrow could continue as it is,” he said. “But it could have a great future as a business airport although it would not be an 80 million-passenger per year airport.”
The mayor added that Heathrow’s site could also be redeveloped for other uses which would help to create new jobs in the west London area.
Johnson and TFL have dismissed other plans such as the ‘Heathwick’ proposal to link Heathrow and Gatwick via a new rail link, and also relocating Heathrow further west to a site over the M25 motorway.
The mayor’s feasibility studies will be run separately to the work being done by the Davies Commission, which is due to announce its recommendations for increasing the UK’s hub capacity in summer 2015 although an interim report looking at short-term options is due before the end of this year.