Plans to build the world's biggest airport in England

[Troy]

Plans to build a four-runway airport in the Thames Estuary are being touted as the solution to London's aviation crisis.

Architect Lord Norman Foster, who designed the Wembley stadium, has unveiled his design for a £50 billion ($77 billion) site that would be the biggest airport in the world.

Handling up to 150 million passengers a year and operating 24-hours a day the "Thames Hub" will serve more than twice as many travellers as Heathrow airport.

Thames Hub


Architect Lord Norman Foster, who created the new Wembley Stadium, says he wanted to create something equally distinctive in the Thames Hub.

London has been searching for ways to manage the increasing pressure on its airports, ever since the government was forced to concede the city's main hubs would reach bursting point by 2030.

A third runway at Heathrow has already been ruled out, and those supporting the Thames Hub insist it's the best solution to the problem.

Aside from dramatically boosting London's capacity to transport air passengers, the Hub would also boast a high-speed rail link to connect the UK with the other key cities in Europe.

This service in itself is expected to see 300, 000 passengers pass through each day.

Thames Hub

The airport will have an underground high-speed railway station build into it, running from the UK to other key European destinations

The Isle of Grain in Kent has been proposed as the project site, with the airport to be built on partially reclaimed marshland.

Designers says most of the planes would fly in over water from the northeast, to reduce the number of homes affected by aircraft noise.

It all sounds fantastic and the images shown look great. I wonder if this will go through though because that is a huge amount of money for an airport even if it will be the biggest in the world. Heathrow is a massive maze on the outside but tiny once you pass through customs and are waiting in the shopping/food area so it would be good to have a bigger airport in England considering how many people fly through there each year. I like the idea of the underground rail link as well that links to many different destinations around Europe, it would simplify everything to have it all under one roof.

What do you think of the plans and do you think it will go ahead?

 

[Killswitch]

An increase in jobs, manufacturing, productivity, business and the economy. What's not to like about a project like this in these difficult times. There's airports around the world that are built in some of the most hostile and dangerous places that you can imagine . It will revitalize a whole area of the U.K and have a massive knock on effect for British business. Also it phases down Heathrow as it really is a terrible place to fly in and out of. Heathrow is not a airport the U.K can be proud of.

 

[Troy]

As long as they can find the money to fund it without harming vital spending then I say go for it. As you say the flow on effect will be massive and it will create so many new jobs building the airport and many, many more once it opens. I would definitely like to go see this airport once it is built.