{"id":4249,"date":"2014-09-03T15:33:12","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T15:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blogs\/a-step-forward-in-londons-airport-debate\/"},"modified":"2023-09-20T06:33:07","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T10:33:07","slug":"a-step-forward-in-londons-airport-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/a-step-forward-in-londons-airport-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"A step forward in London’s airport debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image courtesy of Heathrow Airports Ltd.<\/em><\/p>\n

The commission examining options to expand London’s airport capacity has eliminated the proposal for a new airport in the Thames Estuary put forward by Fosters + Partners.<\/p>\n

In an article in the Architects Journal<\/a>, Christopher Choa<\/a>, principal, urban design + planning, ArchTam, commented: “The Mayor should be applauded for underscoring the importance of developing the UK\u2019s global aviation hub \u2013 this was not a\u00a0well understood issue until he personally brought the discussion back to the public table. However, the Commission\u2019s recent\u00a0decision to rule out the Thames Estuary airport option brings some welcomed clarity.<\/p>\n

“This airport debate is about much more than just runways. London and the UK urgently need to secure their global gateway\u00a0hub at Heathrow.\u00a0Relocating the London hub 55 miles from its current location doesn\u2019t make sense, no matter how pure the potential aviation\u00a0diagram in the estuary.<\/p>\n

“The performance of Heathrow hub rests not only on the aviation capacity of the airport itself, but also its close and growing\u00a0connectivity with the city and specializing industries that have grown organically in step with the airport. It would be\u00a0irresponsible to turn away from decades of investment, development, and infrastructure connectivity.<\/p>\n

“For many reasons, London needs to work hard at encouraging its compactness; the urban sprawl that would eventually be\u00a0induced by the estuary option was a glaring environmental weakness. The economic argument that the estuary airport would\u00a0potentially help build up East London was also misleading; Stratford and East London are already much closer to Heathrow than they would ever be to the estuary site. With Crossrail, the global hub at Heathrow is a 45-minute ride from East London.<\/p>\n

“The debate should now shift to how the broader areas around the airport can best specialize to create the greatest economic,\u00a0social, and environmental benefit for the surrounding boroughs and London itself.<\/p>\n

“London is very strong at regeneration; we instinctively understand the value of adapting and reusing our assets rather than\u00a0casting far afield for greenfield sites. We should take our extraordinary experience of re-imagining the post-industrial area of the\u00a0Lower Lea Valley to heart. Expanding the UK\u2019s global hub at Heathrow builds on strength, not weakness.<\/p>\n

“Growth at Heathrow is the most effective way to support the vitality of London, in the shortest amount of time, with the least\u00a0amount of public expenditure.”<\/p>\n

Commission Chair Howard Davies, London Mayor Boris Johnson, architect Norman Foster, and Weston Williamson’s Chris Williamson also commented\u00a0in the article<\/a>. Johnson and Foster remain committed to the Thames Estuary option. Williamson favors an expansion at Luton Airport. Architect Terry Farrells, Gensler’s Ian Mulcahey, HOK’s Richard Gammon, and Grimshaw’s Jolyon Brewis state their agreement with the commission findings in the article.<\/p>\n

The proposals still under consideration include an expansion of Gatwick Airport and two alternatives involving Heathrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image courtesy of Heathrow Airports Ltd. The commission examining options to expand London’s airport capacity has eliminated the proposal for a new airport in the Thames Estuary put forward by Fosters + Partners. In an article in the Architects Journal, Christopher Choa, principal, urban design + planning, ArchTam, commented: “The Mayor should be applauded for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":544,"featured_media":4250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[255],"tags":[6462,6468],"yst_prominent_words":[498,1991,4343,6153,388,1219],"class_list":["post-4249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-infrastructure","tag-aerotplis","tag-cncdhhwl"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/544"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4249"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15023,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4249\/revisions\/15023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4249"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}