The plans for what has been dubbed the ‘world’s biggest airport’ show how the project, which plans to serve over 150million passengers a year, will be built on waste land on the Isle of Grain in Kent.
Lord Norman Foster, the architect who created the new Wembley Stadium, is behind the plans for the new airport, which includes four runways, terminal buildings and high-speed rail connections to London and the rest of the UK.
Talking of the benefits of the plans, Lord Foster said that it would “lay the foundations for the future prosperity of Britain.”
Architectural critic Edwin Heathcoate said that the plans would be a “complete re-imagining of the UK’s transport infrastructure.”
“It’s a vision of the kind of integration in transport and utilities that has not been considered since the great age of canals and then of railways.”
The plans for a new airport, first unveiled two years ago by the Thames Estuary Airport Feasibility Review, will serve to overcome the current problems surrounding London’s Aviation industry.
Experts estimate that by 2030, Heathrow – currently the UK’s biggest and busiest airport – will reach maximum capacity, and with other London airports restricted on growth, a sustainable resolution to the problems is needed.
However, critics of the plans, including Medway council and environmental charities including the RSPB – who say the plans will threaten thousands of bird species – are against the plans.
Leader of Medway Council, Rodney Chambers, said the plan were “quite possibly the daftest in a long list of pie-in-the-sky schemes that have been put forward for an airport.”
An RSPB spokesperson said: “We oppose this airport proposal because the massive environmental impact is unjustified.”
Picture courtesy of Wikipedia*a piece from my University of Kent portfolio
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