Tom Anderson wrote:


http://www.teaco.co.uk/siteplan.pdf

That plan puts the airport nearest to Herne Bay and Whitstable; the
article explicitly says Southend and Sheerness. The article could be
wrong, but i suspect this is a different plan. Particularly since the
article says Boris claims the plan is feasible, and even he could see
that that one's bonkers - the amount of tunnel involved would be immense.

tom


Looking around the place, that PDF is about as near to a genesis of the
project as you can find - Marinair have been around a while and tried to
get noticed in 2002, but were rejected. They seem to have found ready
ears among Conservatives, though, which probably explains it. Remember,
the level of technical knowledge and experience in the Boris camp is
near-zero. Bags of zeal and gung-ho
with-a-bit-of-courage-we-can-do-anything stuff, but seriously short on clue.

It's difficult to know exactly what Boris is proposing in geospatial
terms, but if you start sketching things out there aren't *that* many
places to put an airport - you're constrained by the shipping channels,
the S.S. Richard Montgomery, the built up area around Chatham and
Rochester and the desirability of at least being close to the M2 and
HS1. You can run your land access west of the built up area (across the
Isle of Grain and between Gravesend and Rochester) or east across
Sheppey, via the gap between Sittingbourne and Faversham*, but that's
about it. My original finger-in-air guess was along the A289/A228
corridor, but that hits the wreck and means a very long under/overwater
stretch along the Sheppey sea-front if Boris really is as far out to sea
as his dredger's path took him :

[see he http://tinyurl.com/af5guc]


The farthest point was due north of Whitstable, about 7-8 miles from
both coasts. Just because a plan's bonkers doesn't mean Boris won't
take it seriously.

There is another plan floating about that I'd like to see again, which
was a tidal barrage in roughly the same area. There are elements of
that in the plan glimpsed today.

Tom

* or Rainham and Sittingbourne, but HS1 is in the North Downs Tunnel at
a likely junction. Mind you, a 200+km/h underground flying junction is
not going to be the most loony part of the proposal.