Heathrow growth would increase London’s vitality

Chris Choa
02 September 2014

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Expanding Heathrow would build on strength not weakness, says AECOM’s Chris Choa

The Mayor should be applauded for underscoring the importance of developing the UK’s global aviation hub – this was not a well understood issue until he personally brought the discussion back to the public table.  However, the Commission’s recent decision to rule out the Thames Estuary airport option brings some welcomed clarity.

"It would be irresponsible to turn away from decades of investment, development, and infrastructure connectivity."

This airport debate is about much more than just runways. London and the UK urgently need to secure their global gateway hub at Heathrow.

Relocating the London hub 55 miles from its current location doesn’t make sense, no matter how pure the potential aviation diagram in the Estuary.

The performance of Heathrow hub rests not only on the aviation capacity of the airport itself, but also its close and growing connectivity with the city and specializing industries that have grown organically in step with the airport.  It would be irresponsible to turn away from decades of investment, development, and infrastructure connectivity.

For many reasons, London needs to work hard at encouraging its compactness; the urban sprawl that would eventually be induced by the Estuary option was a glaring environmental weakness.  The economic argument that the Estuary airport would potentially help build up East London was also misleading; Stratford and East London are already much closer to Heathrow that they would ever be to the Estuary site.  With Crossrail, the global hub at Heathrow is a 45-minute ride from East London.

The debate should now shift to how the broader areas around the airport can best speciale to create the greatest economic, social, and environmental benefit for the surrounding boroughs and London itself.

London is very strong at regeneration; we instinctively understand the value of adapting and reusing our assets rather than casting far afield for greenfield sites.  We should take our extraordinary experience of re-imagining the post-industrial area of the Lower Lea Valley to heart.  Expanding the UK’s global hub at Heathrow builds on strength, not weakness.

Growth at Heathrow is the most effective way to support the vitality of London, in the shortest amount of time, with the least amount of public expenditure.”

Chris Choa is principal, urban design and planning, AECOM