Plans for a new four-runway London mega-hub at Stansted capable of handling 150 million passengers a year were unveiled today.
The proposal’s backers say building a huge new airport in the Essex countryside will be easier, quicker and less expensive than the £50 billion “Boris Island”scheme in the Thames Estuary.
The Stansted vision has been put together by Ken Shuttleworth, the architect behind the Gherkin Tower in the City.
The plans from his practice, Make Architects, would see Heathrow either entirely redeveloped or drastically reduced in size.
They would involve building three new 4km-long runways at Stansted and creating a new Crossrail link from Stansted to Stratford, reducing train journey times to 25 minutes.
The Norman Foster-designed 1991 main terminal building could also be transformed into a train station under the plans but full architectural details have yet to be revealed. Timescales and construction cost have also yet to be confirmed.
Mr Shuttleworth said: “Stansted has very good transport links in terms of the M11 and railway and fairly low population density.
“It’s also closer in real terms to the majority of people in the UK, rather than just London.”
But any proposal to expand Stansted would meet huge opposition from highly organised local residents’ groups. The new bid is the latest option on the table for the Government, facing increasing pressure to find a quick solution to London’s aviation bottleneck.
Mayor Boris Johnson is thought to be moving away from his idea of an estuary airport and towards Stansted as a site for a hub airport.
Gatwick has already announced plans for a new runway to double its capacity to 70 million passengers a year.
