{"id":176,"date":"2013-05-10T12:46:23","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T12:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/?p=176"},"modified":"2015-05-11T12:43:58","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T11:43:58","slug":"debate-over-boris-island-set-to-continue-despite-report-rejection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/2013\/05\/10\/debate-over-boris-island-set-to-continue-despite-report-rejection\/","title":{"rendered":"Debate over ‘Boris Island’ set to continue, despite report rejection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"plane\"<\/a>Professor Roger Vickerman, a leading specialist in transport economics at the School of Economics, says the debate over Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s proposal for a new hub
\nairport in the Thames Estuary will continue to ‘cast a blight over north Kent’, despite its rejection
\nin a new MP’s report.<\/p>\n

The House of Commons Transport Committee warned that any new estuary hub airport would
\nentail ‘huge public expense’ and would also require the closure of Heathrow.<\/p>\n

Professor Vickerman<\/a> said: ‘I agree fully with the report’s findings that there is a need for additional runway capacity, that the urgent priority is for this to be part of a hub-airport strategy, and that the government\u2019s current timetable for taking a decision is too protracted for the scale of the problem.<\/p>\n

‘The most controversial aspect of the report is its clear recommendation for the expansion of Heathrow and its rejection of a new hub airport in the Thames Estuary. The main concern is that the report makes a clear case for a third runway at Heathrow, but if Heathrow is really to work in the long-term it needs a thorough re-modelling into a four-runway airport.<\/p>\n

‘This would take much longer to achieve and it is on these grounds that the appeal for a completely new airport rests. The Committee has helped to narrow the realistic choices faced by the Airports Commission, but I suspect the Heathrow versus Thames Estuary argument will continue to rage – and cast a blight over large parts of north Kent – for some time to come.<\/p>\n

Professor Vickerman is Professor of European Economics at the University of Kent’s School of Economics<\/a> and Director of its Centre for European, Regional and Transport Economics. He is also Dean of its Brussels School of International Studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Roger Vickerman, a leading specialist in transport economics at the School of Economics, says the debate over Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s proposal for … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39722,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39722"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}