Fantasy Island

15 October 2009 By Fiona Maharg-Bravo

Mayor Boris Johnson s plan for a new airport on the Thames Estuary doesn t tick enough boxes. Construction would be hugely expensive and the area s birds could be a crippling problem. Then there s the fate of Heathrow and its 72,000 employees. The idea is a distraction.

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BAA, the UK airports operator, said it would not submit a planning application for a third runway at Heathrow airport until after the general election next June.

The process was always going to take until after the general election. We continue to work on the application and will take as long as is necessary to prepare a proper submission, it said.

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has commissioned a feasibility study on building a new airport in the Thames Estuary. The results are to be released in the next two weeks.

Kit Malthouse, his deputy, said: It is a project that does seem to be arousing a lot of interest, including from the Gulf region, and we would want to look at imaginative ways to fund it should it prove feasible.

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