For those promoting the idea of a quickly built new airport for London in the Thames estuary there is sobering news from the UK rail industry. The notion of a Chep Lap Kok (though that is already capacity limited and needs a third runway) or Incheon built in time to meet unconstrained growth needs looks less likely by the day. In a perfect world an island site close to London with 4 but potentially 6 runways would be ideal but the world itself doesn't live in a perfect world and the UK even less so. In Britain bats and newts and other heavily protected wildlife other than humans stalk the land. Humans collectively aren't reckoned to stack up to much but other creatures certainly are.
Less than 100 miles to the west of the islands of Roberts and Olsen/Moudarri there is a disused railway tunnel, one of 2 parallel ones on a line between Oxford and Bicester. It is proposed to reopen this tunnel to enable the line to be redoubled and become a new route between Oxford and London and to reopen part of the long closed Oxford- Cambridge line which would enable many tavellers to avoid having to travel via London. It is in airport terms a tiny, obvious and low cost project but a good and sensible one.
It has a problem though. Bats and newts. The bats have taken a liking to the disused tunnel and to taking a short cut through it to "commute". Apparently like humans they go to work and have urgent business as well no doubt as leisure travel and also a teenager style propensity to hang about in dark places with their mates. "Today's Railways" tells us that as result the local planning inspector has therefore rejected Chiltern Railways planning application on the basis that the tunnel is used by the bats "for swarming, commuting, foraging and a temporary roost site" and trains running through would damage their environment. An allied proposal to warn bats of approaching trains via a special lighting system is also rejected as unproven. He or she also identifies " a potential threat to a nearby colony of great crested newts". In fairness, the Transport Secretary, Justine Greening, has told Chiltern Railways and Natural England to go away and resolve the issue as quickly as possible, but rather like the judiciary, planning authorities and their officials tend to be very independent minded and stubborn. Such are the dangers of passing democracy down to the lowest level, something about which this government waxes lyrical.
With only bats and newts to worry about this show stopping short tunnel is very small beer. The Thames estuary is crawling with wildlife including resident and migratory birds. Every attempt to develop it in any way has previously been met with howls of protest. Any notion that a new airport could even get through the planning, objections and appeals processes, UK and EU, within 15 years is fanciful. All this underlines the fact that the coalition's binning of the nearly ready-to-go Heathrow third runway after the May 2010 General Election was a tragic mistake which is set to cost UK Plc billions over many years. Its obstinate refusal to even consider the runway as a possibility in the current review, likely to report in 2012 or 2013, is emotional, illogical and downright bad business.
