This week, London's Mayor, Boris Johnson, dragged out his old idea of building a new airport in the Thames Estuary. Now, I really like the Mayor. I think he's a great improvement over the previous Mayor, Ken Livingston, but I find this idea one of his weak spots. To a great degree, I think this comes down to politics. The previous, Labour government approved building a third runway at Heathrow. Some odd people opposed this and I think the Conservatives campaigned on cancelling the third runway, to gain votes form those people opposed to the project. This was such an odd situation, because traditionally, the Conservatives have been on the side of business. I think the majority of businessmen, in London, favor expansion of Heathrow. Heathrow is the busiest London airport and close to the West End.
In any case, Boris couldn't really run on a campaign favoring expanding Heathrow, when his party was officially opposed to it. So, when faced with questions as to what he would propose doing about the need for more airport capacity, in London, Boris came up with this daft idea of building a new airport, out east, in the Thames Estuary. After he won the election, Boris' airport idea fell by the wayside. Recently, I heard that some people objected that it would disturb Thames birds. The heck with the birds, it would be too far away. I live just southwest of London and Heathrow is the closest airport to me. I wouldn't want to have to travel all the way to the other side of London. A Thames Estuary airport would be further from me than any other London airport. It would cost a lot of money to build a complete airport, from scratch. Plus, it would be necessary to build all the transportation infrastructure to get people to and from the new airport. Heathrow already has that infrastructure. Surely, it would be cheaper just to build another runway there. Boris, please let your half-baked idea die. For good advice on all things transport, talk to me, Mr. Mayor.
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