Flood protection, Environment, The Thames Hub is a proposal for a new approach to integrated infrastructure development that combines rail, intermodal freight logistics, aviation, tidal renewable energy and its transmission, flood protection and regional development in the Thames Estuary and connects this infrastructure to a trade and utilities spine that runs the length of the UK.
"[3] In the accompanying video Foster talks about the consequences of inaction in relation to infrastructure planning and says that "the cost of doing business as usual is unaffordable and is certainly greater than this initiative".
In addition rail freight trains need to run through Central London to get between the Thames Estuary ports and the rest of the country.
Options for an estuary airport were considered in detail by the Labour Government as part of its work in preparing the 2003 Air Transport White Paper.
[7] In 2008 Boris Johnson the Mayor of London announced plans to carry out a study for an estuarial airport in the Shivering Sands area, north-east of Whitstable.
The feasibility report, produced in October 2009 by former CrossRail Executive Chairman, Douglas Oakervee (who led the construction of Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok airport on an island platform), concluded that there is "no logical constraint" to the plan.
[16] In his Mayoral response to the government's sustainable aviation public consultation, Boris Johnson highlighted the fact that China's fastest growing airline was unable to operate at Heathrow due to a lack of airport capacity.
[17] The Institute of Directors has called for Government to be bold when drawing up its final aviation framework and to consider such ideas as a new hub airport in the Thames estuary.
The proposed hydropower array in the Estuary would be 5 kilometres long and 500 metres wide and would harness tidal flows to produce energy with zero carbon emissions.
Their proposed location is north of the Estuary Airport and to the south of the Yantlet shipping channel, the main container freight route to Tilbury Docks and the new London Gateway port.
Over a yearly cycle, the energy produced would be enough to supply the Estuary Airport, where demand is estimated as 400-600 GWh/year, allowing excess power to be fed back into the National Grid.
It is estimated to remove around 4,000 lorries per day from the M25 and would reduce the costs of continual motorway expansion and the maintenance demands caused by prolonged heavy use.
The excavated earth could then be used to build embankments alongside the track, within which energy and data cables could be laid, in order to provide acoustic shielding and reduce the visual impact of the railway, similar in concept to the use of the Ha-ha in garden design.
New stations along the Orbital Rail route will be located close to existing junctions on the M25, making them accessible by two million people within a 10 kilometre radius.
Thus it will reassert London's geographical advantage as the stop-off point between North America and Eurasia, which is being eroded by a combination of new long-range aircraft and the emergence of networks centred on a global hub, such as Dubai.
Such an approach is described in a paper for the European Investment Bank by regulatory economist Dieter Helm[25] and how greater use can be made of RAB funding is being studied by HM Treasury.
[26] The launch of the Thames Hub proposal on 2 November 2011 attracted widespread media comment, including coverage on television and radio and articles on web sites, in newspapers and the technical press.
[28] The Daily Telegraph in its 'Comment' section said that it was "refreshing to see ambition reminiscent of Britain’s Victorian heyday in the latest proposals for a new airport in the Thames estuary.
New Civil Engineer magazine devoted five pages of its 3 November 2011 edition to the Hub and in the following week it was the most popular story on its web site.
"[37] Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, welcomed the proposal and a spokesman said that "He is delighted that a distinguished figure like Lord Foster agrees that the answer to Britain’s aviation needs lie in the [Thames] estuary.
The airport, situated in Thanet, in north east Kent, is relatively close (15 miles) to the Port of Dover and the Eurotunnel Folkestone Terminal and because of this proximity its supporters claim that it could become a hub for arrivals and departures between the UK and Europe and beyond.
They also argue that, compared to developing a new airport, expansion at Manston would: a) reduce the amount of taxpayer support that would be needed; b) result in less environmental costs; and c) help regenerate this relatively deprived area of Kent.
However Manston is located 65 miles from Central London and the journey time from St Pancras by existing high speed Javelin trains to the nearest rail station at Ramsgate is 1 hour 16 minutes.
This journey time could be reduced to under 50 minutes if the old Ashford to Ramsgate railway line, that makes up part of the HS1 route was upgraded to high speed standards, although the Department for Transport has no plans to do this at present.