Stop the Estuary Airport

Fewer than one in five people back the Mayor of London’s Thames Estuary airport plan, a new survey shows.

The survey, by online marketers One Poll, shows that only 18 per cent of people across the country support the controversial proposal and that forty seven per cent are against it.

The poll – which questioned 3,000 people online across the UK – comes after the Mayor of London published a feasibility study into the building of a £40billion island airport off the Kent and Essex coast last year.

Since then, Medway Council, Kent County Council and the RSPB have joined together to launch a campaign – and online petition at www.stopestuaryairport.co.uk – against the estuary airport plan, which they say is unnecessary and unaffordable.

They argue that an estuary airport would turn parts of Medway and Kent into a concrete jungle and disrupt the environment off Hoo – a place with Sites of Special Scientific Interest and internationally important areas used by hundreds of thousands of migrating birds.

The campaign argues that instead of building a new airport in the Thames Estuary the capacity of existing airports, where the infrastructure is already in place, should be fully used.

For instance, Manston Airport, in Kent, has one of the longest runways in Europe and already has a high-speed rail link.

And Birmingham International Airport has previously said it could double its capacity, allowing an extra nine million passengers to fly from it annually.

The One Poll survey, which was commissioned by Birmingham International Airport, appears to back this argument by showing that 49 per cent of Londoners say they would fly from Birmingham if a high-speed rail link is built.

Rodney Chambers, Medway Council Leader, said: “This poll shows us exactly what we know to be the case, that the vast majority of people are opposed to the Mayor of London’s Thames Estuary airport proposal.

“In fact, it shows that only 18 per cent of people surveyed support it. I am sure people will agree with me when I say that it seems as if an underwhelming minority of people want or even take seriously the Mayor of London’s pie in the sky airport scheme.

“A Thames Estuary airport would blight huge parts of Kent and Medway as it would need a huge amount of infrastructure to support it and it would devastate one of Europe’s most important areas for migrating wildfowl.

“This airport has very little support and the Mayor of London should announce plans to shelve it now.

“I urge people to let him know how strongly they are opposed to the estuary airport plan by signing our online petition at www.stopestuaryairport.co.uk”

Last week, all councillors at Medway Council unanimously backed a report which shows that a new airport in the estuary would be too far from London – and the majority of people who would use it to the west of the capital and would be too close to Thamesport – where huge quantities of Liquid Natural Gas are imported.

It also shows that an airport in the estuary would be in a place where aircraft would be 12 times more likely to suffer bird strike than at any other major UK airport.

Leaders of each group from Medway Council will meet with the Mayor of London’s deputy, Kit Malthouse, in March to tell him why they think the estuary airport plan must be dropped.

Notes for editors:

The survey was carried out through online research by online pollsters One Poll.

It is drawn from three thousand people questioned in December.

The poll was commissioned by Birmingham International Airport.