estuary airport; Medway; Boris; island;

MEDWAY Council leaders are hopeful they have sunk plans for an airport in the Thames estuary after a meeting with the deputy mayor of London.

Leader of the council, Cllr Rodney Chambers was joined by Labour chief, Cllr Paul Godwin, the LibDem's Cllr Maureen Ruperal and Independent group leader Cllr Tony Goulden to register their opposition to the proposals with Boris Johnson's deputy Kit Malthouse.

United: Medway Councillors Maureen Ruperal, Tony Goulden, Rodney Chambers and Paul Godwin with director of regeneration Robin Cooper, second left, in London

Mr Johnson favours the £40 billion project to solve Heathrow's problems with over capacity.

The meeting took place at London's City Hall on Tuesday, March 2, when Cllr Chambers told Mr Malthouse he believed that the Mayor of London was acting in a 'predatory' way over the Thames Estuary.

He said the plan should be shelved and it should 'not to go on any further on wasting tax payer's money' on studies into an airport that no one wants.

In addition, they handed Mr Malthouse a dossier telling him exactly why the airport must not go ahead.

The report, entitled called Thames Estuary Airport – Feasibility Review, claims an estuary airport would be too far from London and too close to the major liquid natural gas port, Thamesport.

It also says aircraft would be 12 times more likely to suffer bird strike than at any other major UK airport.

Cllr Chambers said: "We met with Mr Malthouse and made our views clear, we do not want this airport.

"I told him that the Mayor of London was behaving in a predatory fashion over Kent and Essex and said that we would not compromise to accept such a pie in the sky scheme.

"A steering group has been set up by the Mayor of London's office and Mr Malthouse told me that this will be looking at a number of issues over the Thames Estuary.

"We on Medway Council were united in telling him that we would not change our view and will do all that we can to fight any airport plan."

Medway Council has agreed it will send to the mayor's office all the reasons why a similar airport plan at Cliffe was shelved nearly eight years ago as many of these mirror the arguments against a Thames Estuary airport.