Airport neighbours rally against expansion plans
Tuesday 9th December 2008, 2:30PM GMT.
A TEMPORARY harbour at L’Eree has been suggested as one way to handle materials for work at the airport.
The proposal is said to have come out at a presentation concerning refurbishing the runway.
And the plans for the work itself would damage the island and shatter lives unless they are scaled down dramatically, according to neighbours led by former Environment minister David De Lisle (pictured).
‘The proposal to extend the runway by 240 metres to the west goes far beyond essential works to the runway and aprons,’ he said. ‘The expansion would concrete over huge swathes of countryside.’
The roads would be filled with trucks transporting materials, he said, and hundreds of workers would have to be brought to the island. ‘And the suggestion to use L’Eree bay is very bad. It would suffer.’
Airport director Colin Le Ray responded to criticism of the plans by saying there was an obligation to meet standards and that methods for transporting materials to the site had not yet been decided, despite contrary claims.
‘The plans endeavour to achieve compliance with current national and international aviation standards and recommendations insofar as is reasonably practicable,’ he said.
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240 metres would appear to be quite an extension!
Have comparissons been made to similar Islands to compare runway length to business/safety needs,
such as the Isle of Man and Gibraltor?
Given the way environmental issues and pressures are going I can only see runway needs reducing. I would hate to think someone was plucking an estimate as to what might be needed, rather than looking at meeting the safety legislations and leaving the length driven by that only, not by expanded aircraft sizes.
If this work is being proposed based on a 747 airbus it would not suprise me!
Labour should be that available on the Island already, to draw in outside labour is a wasted opportunity to fund the local economy and with it no doubt would come an increase spate of crime. Take and longer and do it right.
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I don’t think adding an extra £35 million to the already horrendous estimate of £85 million to upgrade the runway can be described as ‘reasonably practical’.
I wish our politicians would accept that we are only 60,000 or so people crowded on to a small island and stop trying to act as though we were a large city. There simply are not enough travellers to warrant trying to attract more airlines. The present operators are struggling as it is.
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Has anybody seriously considered building a brand new airport on reclaimed land off the northwest coast, funded by selling off the existing airport site for housing ? With the way that costs are mounting to fix the existing airport, the cost of writing off the cost of the “new” airport building would be neither here nor there.
If a new airport on reclaimed land may cost say £300m, and if the existing airport land was worth say £200m if used for housing, then a net cost of £100m is less than the £115m needed to fix and extend the existing runway. One would have to fund interest costs on a new airport being built before the existing airport land could be sold of course, but with very low interest rates at the moment that’s not such a huge cost.
We could build literally hundreds of houses at the existing airport, which would help solve our future demographic problem by bringing in lots of essential workers to grow and broaden the economy and also help to achieve future economic growth with far less impact on other islanders. New roads would need to be built to cope with extra traffic but there are hundreds of fields in St Andrews, Forest and St Martins between the existing airport and Town to make that viable.
Something similar is proposed instead of expanding Heathrow. Build a new airport on reclaimed land in the Thames Estuary and it could operate 24 hours a day. Tens of thousands of new homes could be built at the existing Heathrow site to finance it.
The truth is that if one was building an airport in Guernsey today, nobody would have put it at la Villiaze. Airports on reclaimed land make so much sense (less on-island noise and pollution) and can be seen all around the world and all of these places had airports previously so its not so far-fetched.
Just a thought…
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i would jst like to say it would be a good idea to extend the current runway now before all the work starts on the resufcing the runway at the moment as it stands the runway is in bad condistion and the runway extention is not based on if a boeing 747 or eny of the airbus planes to come here at the moment as it stands flybe cannot bring its new regonal jet here due to the surface of the runway which is needed for its gatwick route and when the plans were broght out for the new terminal the plans had on it parking for boeing 737 which do run out of jersey and would mean islanders could go on holiday from here without going via uk which costs lots of money the tourism trade would soon pick back up as flying here a few years ago when british airways was here was very very expensive but if you let other companys come here it would benifit the island more plus give somthing back to the locals which means they could travel better and there would be more visators to the island hense more money and tade for bussines and we do have alot of people unemplyed and would create jobs for them but yes you have to get some people over from the uk becouse we dont have the speciised people to say what to do and how to do it right
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Agree that specialists may be needed to be brought over, but the vast majority of the labour needed may in fact be manual labour. This should be sourced through the local workforce including the afore mentioned unemployed.
I do feel that expanding it could end up a very expensive white elephant.
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There simply are not enough travellers to warrant trying to attract more airlines. The present operators are struggling as it is..
…………..
Thats the bottom line Sheila
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David
Very sensibe suggestions. Our own workforce could achieve this. If the Germans can use forced labour to achieve what they did I am quite sure that we could achieve our own dreams.
Costs could and should be kept to a minimum. They have to be. A new airport that has its materials shipped direct to site would cancel out many costs. However 300 million would be optimistic. 500 would be more realistic?
The safety aspect and future proofing of this cost would be very worthwhile. Would the Forest land be worth a lot more when this project is complete?
I have a crystal ball but I can’t read into it!
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