Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 13:22:01 on
Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Recliner remarked:
Not on the flood plain, but on an artificial island, like Hong Kong.

Also Kansai and Kobe airports, which really are artificial islands.

And Incheon (aka Seoul International)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ye...g_location.svg

Maybe we could do something similar - fill in the whole Thames Estuary?

I think i was pimping this idea a while ago. I'd been looking at the
various epic works the Dutch did, particularly the building of the
IJsselmeer, and it occurred to me that we could do something similar.
Not just to the Thames estuary - to the entire Channel, between East
Anglia and the Netherlands. As with the IJ, you'd not totally close up
the space, but leave large canals running along the line of the existing
coast (some of it, at least), so that there was still access to the
ports (and to hydraulically separate the polders from the existing land).

This would not only create land for housing in the overcrowded
southeast, as well as a huge amount of agricultural land, but enable
direct rail links to northern Europe (including a Felixstowe - Rotterdam
freight line), provide opportunities to create huge amounts of
ecologically vital wetlands, and effectively eliminate the flood and
erosion risk to the Thames estuary and East Anglia. We could even build
a new home for the Trident fleet at the same time, to shut the jocks up.

I shall write to the environment secretary immediately. Where can one
buy a pen with green ink these days?

It's been suggested before!

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/200...of-doggerland/

“If the extensive schemes for the drainage of North Sea are carried out
according to the plan illustrated above, which was conceived by a group
of eminent English scientists, 100,000 square miles will be added to the
overcrowded continents of Europe. The reclaimed land will be walled in
with enormous dykes, similar to the Netherland dykes, to protect it from
the sea, and the various rivers flowing into the North Sea will have
their courses diverted to different outlets by means of canals.”

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK