The news that the government is to consult on the possibility of a major hub airport in the Thames Estuary comes as no surprise following the Chancellor’s autumn statement but does open up a new environmental battle.
I’m still waiting to hear from The Treasury, via my MP Louise Mensch, on why they think that the habitats regulations are a brake on the UK economy.
Juliette Jowit’s article in the Guardian sets out the changing face of Tory pronouncements on aviation and airports.
On Newsnight last night the airport question was debated and it was good to see Caroline Lucas (our only Green Party MP) and Germaine Greer (Buglife’s President apart from anything else, and there is quite a lot else) speaking up for the environmental problems of this scheme.
But maybe we are about to see what the Lib Dems are for. The Guardian, again (other newspapers do exist, I know), suggests that the leeking of the plan to consult on this hub airport has handed a gift to the Lib Dems who will support the consultation but oppose any plans to build new airport capacity in south east England.
I was talking to my local RSPB Group yesterday evening and this topic came up. It was interesting that several people came up to me in this marginal constituency (take note, Louise Mensch, David Cameron and George Osborne) and said that they hoped that this would be the issue where the Lib Dems showed some environmental backbone within the coalition government.
I very rarely fly and the Thames Estuary looks like an inconvenient place for me to go to do it, living here in east Northants. And at the present rate of rail fare increases, travelling to a Thames Estuary won’t look very feasible by the time any airport could be built. Yesterday, my day return into London on the 0714 train from Wellingborough, where I had to stand on the full train as far as Luton Airport Parkway station before being lucky enough to get a seat, was £89.
Trying to pour more and more people into, and through, the southeast of England doesn’t seem to work very well at the moment. Doing more of it involving wrecking some of its remaining environmental hotspots is crazy. But crazy things happen, particularly when they are intricately bound up in the politics of the nation.
Will the environmental and wildlife NGOs mount a successful campaign? What will the political parties do? Where is the Labour Party on this? Have we found what the Lib Dems are for…by finding out what they are against?
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Mark, At my age my memory may be failing me but when the Severn Barrage was first discussed some people were saying that mitigation measures for displaced birdlife could be achieved in the Thames Estuary. Now we seem to have consultations going on both sites?
Bob – certainly the Essex marshes would be a potential compensation site. Good point!