Lord Foster said today that an airport in the Thames Estuary would connect London to growing economies and create thousands of acres of wildlife habitat.
The architect of Hong Kong, Beijing and Stansted airports has designed a £20 billion mega-hub airport on the Isle of Grain, which would become the world’s biggest.
Writing in today’s Standard, he says “Britain would leapfrog the competition”, and called on the Government to “reject the illusory option” of expanding Heathrow.
Critics have warned that a Thames Estuary airport would be an “environmental catastrophe”, but Lord Foster says that private funding would do more to create new habitats for wildlife “than might ever be found in the public purse for their conservation”.
“Critics have highlighted the loss of wildlife habitats, but climate change has already placed these in jeopardy,” he says.
