Monday 24 June 2013

Response to Transport Select Committee Report


Press release 10 May 2013
Response to Transport Select Committee Report
The Transport Select Committee’s recommendation is to investigate a 4-runway airport at Heathrow. In Policy Exchange’s report this will mean building a brand new airport over the M25 west of Heathrow.
West London’s transport is already at capacity and could not support a major airport of the size proposed without substantial public infrastructure investment.
This airport will not address the crucial problem of noise pollution for Londoners.  Large aircraft cannot land using steep approach proposed and will be concentrated on one runway,
exacerbating noise pollution.
The proposals for steeper descents can only be applied to smaller aircraft.
Airport design proposed by Policy Exchange, quoted in TSC report, not technically feasible, airport footprint will need to be larger than drawn to accommodate wide-bodied aircraft.
Detailed costs have not been given for comparison with other solutions – adding a 3rd runway to Heathrow was costed at £10bn alone.
Notes
We welcome the fact that the Transport Select Committee recognises the need for increased hub capacity and that this can only be provided at one airport.
The Committee believes that a new a 4-runway Hub at Heathrow should be considered. This would mean building a brand new airport four kilometres to the west of Heathrow, sitting over the M25 and a major reservoir. This is one of the most congested parts of the country and construction would have to take place under the flight path of the busiest airport in Europe.
Proposals for Heathrow have been made by Policy Exchange in their ‘Bigger and Quieter: The right answer for aviation’ report.
We do not believe a 4-runway airport to the west of Heathrow would fit within the footprint being outlined in Policy Exchange’s report. They have not recognised that the location of Terminal 5 restricts the positioning of twin taxi ways alongside the northern runways to incorporate Code F wide wing-span aircraft (A380). Consequently the position of the runways would have to move further north, significantly affecting the villages of Longford and Colnbrook.
The runway lengths shown in the Policy Exchange report are 3,000m; aircraft manufacturer’s minimum lengths for Heathrow are 2,850m. We believe a margin for abnormal conditions would require a minimum

For further information
please contact Katy Harris at Foster + Partners, T +44 (0)20 7738 0455 F +44 (0)20 7738 1107
E press@fosterandpartners.comlength of 3,500m. Therefore the whole airport footprint would need to be larger, necessitating the total closure of one reservoir and a substantial reduction in size of a further two.
Diverting or burying 10 lanes of the M25 in this area (its busiest section) whilst keeping it operational will be enormously complex, disruptive and costly.
The report says that noise reduction can be achieved by aircraft descending more steeply to land. Though this may be practical for a small number of narrow bodied aircraft it is not possible for the wider bodied aircraft which are inherently attracted to a Hub. These larger aircraft will need to use a shallow descent on one of the runways and will therefore generate continuous noise pollution to millions of Londoners.
The cost of building an efficient, competitive, 4-runway Hub at Heathrow has not been quantified. In contrast, our proposals for a Thames Estuary airport have been fully costed at £24bn, including transport proposals to support an opening capacity of 84 mppa and allowing growth to 110 mppa, with future capacity up to 150mppa. There is no proof offered that a new airport in the east would be more expensive than a brand new one at Heathrow. We believe a new airport to the east would be cheaper to build and cheaper to provide transport to. It will also unlock substantial regeneration opportunities to the east of London.
We believe these proposals to expand aviation capacity at Heathrow are ill-founded technically and would perpetuate unacceptable environmental impacts on Londoners. They are therefore not the right answer. Now is the time to look for a long term answer which minimises impacts and guarantees maximum future potential and flexibility.
-Ends-
For further information
please contact Katy Harris at Foster + Partners, T +44 (0)20 7738 0455 F +44 (0)20 7738 1107
E press@fosterandpartners.com
Posted by Editorial at 15:10 0 comments

Foster & Partners has hit back after MPs dismissed their plans for an airport in the Thames estuary as “unacceptable”.


Norman Foster and Boris Johnson dismiss MPs' Heathrow report

10 May 2013 | Updated: 10 May 2013 6:37 pm | By Elizabeth Hopkirk
  • Foster Thames estuary plan
  • Foster’s design for an Estuary Airport.
  • Gensler's London airport in the Thames Estuary.

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Transport committee ‘failed to consider cost of burying M25 and extending Tube’
Foster & Partners has hit back after MPs dismissed their plans for an airport in the Thames estuary as “unacceptable”.
The House of Commons transport select committee has issued a report that firmly backs an expanded Heathrow.
It urges the government to press ahead with a third runway in west London and to consider a fourth.
It dismisses an east-of-London option on the grounds that it would require too much investment in transport infrastructure, would lead to the “unacceptable” closure of Heathrow and would have a potentially substantial impact on wildlife in the Thames estuary.
But proponents of an eastern hub airport – who include Foster & Partners, Gensler and Mayor of London Boris Johnson – were swift to rubbish the report.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Johnson said a third runway at Heathrow would be obsolete as soon as it was built and that a four-runway hub was the only realistic option. This would have to be built slightly west of Heathrow’s existing location, he said.
“It would probably be cheaper to move London slightly to the east,” he quipped.
“What the Heathrow-ites fail to be quite clear about is there would be tremendous amount of new transport infrastructure necessitated by such a huge project, the cost of which would be directly comparable [with that needed to support a Thames estuary airport].”
Fosters put out a detailed statement (see attachment) which concluded: “We believe these proposals to expand aviation capacity at Heathrow are ill-founded technically and would perpetuate unacceptable environmental impacts on Londoners. They are therefore not the right answer.
“Now is the time to look for a long-term answer which minimises impacts and guarantees maximum future potential and flexibility.”

Posted by Editorial at 15:07 0 comments

Boris Johnson It is utter nonsense to claim that a new airport would mean some kind of economic devastation in west London.


The people who run Heathrow are doing their best. Their airport is bursting at the seams. They must deal with the fury of those who fly thousands of miles only to circle over London for half an hour and then miss their connecting flights. They must cope with the longest taxi-out times in Europe. They must be ready for the slightest disruption to cause chaos. Yes, the staff at Heathrow are doing exceptionally well in running a hub airport that is at 98.5 per cent capacity. They treat the suffering multitudes with great politeness and, in proposing a way forward, Heathrow’s bosses are treating the public like absolute idiots.
They say they want a third runway “now” and then maybe a fourth runway “later”. Of all the miserable, useless, cynical examples of corporate short-termism and greed, this takes some beating. It would need about 15 to 18 years — with a fair wind and favourable judges — to build a third runway in London’s western suburbs. The thing would not open until the late 2020s, at which point huge new sectors of London would find themselves under the roar of the flightpath. We would have recklessly exacerbated the Heathrow problem — which already causes a third of the aircraft noise pollution endured by the whole of Europe.
Then what? Does anyone seriously believe that Heathrow bosses would declare themselves satisfied with this disaster? How could they, with only three runways — when Madrid has four, Paris Charles de Gaulle six, Frankfurt four and Amsterdam’s Schiphol has space for a seventh — and when aviation demand will continue to climb and the winners in the global race will be those with the best connections to the growing cities of Asia and Latin America?
As soon as a third runway was completed, Heathrow would be clamouring to compete with its continental rivals (to say nothing of Dubai or Mumbai), and we would find ourselves having the same arguments over again, about the need for the fourth runway — but with the position a hundred times worse: with west London jammed with traffic and the skies of the greatest city on earth filled with planes.
It is time to end the madness, and back out of the intellectual cul-de-sac. We need to do what all our competitors are doing or have done. We need a 24-hour, four-runway hub airport, preferably to the east of London, so planes can land without causing misery to millions. We need room to expand, and we will never find enough at Heathrow.
It is utter nonsense to claim that a new airport would mean some kind of economic devastation in west London. On the contrary, Heathrow accounts for about three per cent of the jobs in what is one of the most dynamic and competitive parts of the UK. We face a crippling housing shortage in London — and here is a whole beautiful new borough waiting to be called into being. We are looking at an area the size of Kensington and Chelsea, with the potential for tens of thousands of homes, hi-tech industry, university campuses and, if need be, a vestigial airport.
In the east we would finally have the space to do what is needed: create a logistics hub that links road, rail, sea and air — in which the new DP World deep-water port would be linked to the airport by the forthcoming Lower Thames Crossing, on which the Government has begun consultation.
For an indication of how it would work, look at the 2020 Vision for London which the GLA published last week. This is the solution that matches the scale of this country’s needs and ambitions. With high-speed rail and road links, Transport for London officials are confident that it would be easily accessible to the whole of the UK.
Of all the options we have looked at in the past two years, this is the one that offers the most breathtaking scope for regeneration, job creation, and, above all, future expansion. There would be no more agony, no more fear that London would be endlessly blighted by planes, no more trying to pour a quart into a pint pot.
My officials think the combined logistics hub and aerotropolis would create up to 500,000 jobs, and would drive not just London — east and west — but the whole UK economy. It would help us recapture business we have lost over the past century — through failure to expand our transport infrastructure — to our continental rivals. London was overtaken as a port because we failed to follow the Dutch and make space for the big container ships. We are making the same mistake with aviation.
How many UK regional airports does Heathrow serve? Seven. How many UK regional airports are served by Schiphol? Twenty-seven. How on earth can we call Heathrow an adequate national hub airport? Other airports are eating our lunch, and we must fight back.
Yes, the new airport is a big project, and will involve some dislocation, and immense political drive and leadership. But it is infinitely better than desperately pretending we can go on with a third runway at Heathrow, or a second runway at Gatwick, or “Heathwick” or any other half-cock solution.
I don’t blame the Heathrow bosses for their short-termism, or for trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes about the real agenda. They have no fiduciary duty to their shareholders — most of whom are overseas — to take account of the quality of life of the people of London or the long-term needs of the UK economy. They are there, like all good business people, to make as much money as they can over a 15-year time horizon — which is as far ahead as businesses can think. We need to think long-term, and think big, about what is in the interests of this city and this country, and the first step to sanity is to reject the third runway at Heathrow.

Posted by Editorial at 15:01 0 comments
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