It looks like bovril will yet get into the money as pressure is building for a new airport.

I say pressure is building based on the reaction from the following luminaries "  

Labour's Ken Livingstone has called it "crazy", the Green Party's Jenny Jones opposes it primarily on environmental grounds, while Lib Dem hopeful Brian Paddick has said the priority for London should be affordable, reliable public transport instead.

The RSPB, Medway Council and Kent County Council have opposed the Thames Estuary idea, saying it is "undeliverable, unaffordable and unnecessary".

Conservative MP for Chatham and Aylesford Tracey Crouch - whose constituency is close to the estuary - wrote on Twitter: "Consultation on Boris Airport is a tedious, unnecessary, expensive waste of taxpayers' money".

The GMB union's civil aviation industry national officer, Mick Rix, also said the estuary plan was "plain daft".

are they going to use float planes?

Maplin revisited. Now there are wind farms either existing or planned to fill a lot of the estuary, the disturbance to bird life argument no longer applies.

Some remarkably high proportion of city airports around the world have been built on what was shallow water, almost always via making the level up with domestic and commercial refuse as landfill. London is acutely short of landfill sites I understand.

I think something over 70% of London flights come from or go to the East, and these would no longer have to fly low over London.

While being almost as much as a sceptic as Peter about such things, there is sufficient merit in the idea to have a close look at it.

i really fail to see the need for a fifth london airport. with the price of oil rising, who will afford it?

glasshouse:

i really fail to see the need for a fifth london airport. with the price of oil rising, who will afford it?

I agree 100%, but who the hell takes any notice of you or me?

 glasshouse, But what if Scotland is selling that oil?

old mac, we will be selling that oil and flying direct from edinburgh.

wild horses could not persuade me to use a london airport.

 glasshouse, I do not know anyone who uses a London airport by choice. Everyone I know takes the trouble to fly into Britain via somewhere else.