INTERVIEW: Bringing Boris Johnson’s Thames Hub to life
Tuesday, 16 Aug 2011 09:17
- Why have you decided to go ahead with the project?
- We are a global company and most of our work is overseas. We see what the rest of the world is doing, we see the infrastructure they are building, we see the growth of airports and seaports and we understand from all that experience that if UK wants to stay competitive in the global trading arena, we need to have the ability to connect the infrastructure. Maritime trade, air passengers and air cargo connected to an integrated rail system will help us moving forward in an environmentally friendly way.
- What happens after September when you will release the study?
- This is about having a debate. We think we need to be talking about where we want to be in 30 years and what kind of country we want our children to inherit from us.
The project is a series of discreet components that can be funded from the private sector. Each one of the components is deliverable and can be linked into one integrated hub.
With this project we wanted to wrap up some ideas and prepare a report which looks at a development opportunity, economical growth, planning aspects, environmental impact and how you realise the idea.
- So you are offering a vision, thinking that if people actually see it, they might be more open to the Thames Estuary Hub idea?
- Yes, we hope to offer a vision. That might sound little bit arrogant, but we are not the only people who have a vision and the great thing about us putting this forward is that we can welcome other people who equally have a vision and this becomes a team effort. We are entirely open to other good suggestions and input from other people.
- Usually projects like these live to become iconic for the country, what is iconic about your project?
- We don’t like the term “iconic”, as the more people think things are iconic, the less iconic it becomes. What’s unique about this project it’s what’s clever about it. In Britain we prefer to be clever about the way we spend money, invest and develop things; and the way we will take the economy forward is through being clever. So what’s potentially clever about this project is how you can link in transport systems with economic growth. How it can help to connect the Midlands and North/West, our manufacturing bases, to the South East; how that might overcome current North and South divide. How high speed rail will link into the Estuary, bringing transport not only from North and North West, but also potentially from Europe via Channel Tunnel. How a hub airport then can serve a very wide region and how you get expanded connectivity via high speed rail not only for long distance but also freeing capacity for local service. And, very importantly, how you integrate freight and create data rich environment for freight.
- How will you integrate this hub into the surrounding environment without disrupting it?
- I think it would be naive to say that we won’t cause the disruption. The key to success of this project is how you design it to minimise disruption and if you are disrupting how you mitigate it and how replace it, so you could actually leave the environment in a better condition that it was before. You have to remember that in the Estuary there have been decades of industrial development and there are a lot of very large brownfield sites. So there is an opportunity to revitalise the area, re-inject growth and jobs, which is something critical for the people in the area. And an airport, seaport and integrated transport network will be critical to that.
- In your announcement you mentioned the Hong Kong island airport, what kind of parallels you can draw with this project?
- If you look at the history of airport developments, most of the major cities that had an airport close to the centre at the certain point they said it is too congested, too noisy, it generates too much pollution, so we will move it. All over the world you will find examples of that. And people typically move it quite a long way away from the city centre. Hong Kong is a very good example of that. Moving it away from the city centre and then putting a very strong connectivity back to the existing centre, which creates a seamless flow from the city centre to the airport. This is absolutely critical in our view.
- There is a growing trend to build a city around the airport, creating an airport city. Your project looks at freight, rail, seaport and airport, which is somewhat all industrial; do you see a vision for urban life around the Thames Hub?
- Certainly. Airports have major workforces - Heathrow is generating maybe up to 100,000 secondary jobs, Thames Gateway Port - over 20,000 jobs. So there is a substantial employment that comes with air transport and maritime trade.
The role of a hub is to connect people and increasingly they are using airports as their destinations. Also, we are seeing a substantial growth of tourism from Asia and India. 20-30 years from now it will be something very important to our economy. Where will those people go? Paris, with a day trip to London, or the other way around? Looking forward it is very important to see how people get to us.
- What do you say to sceptics?
- People said it was madness to invest any money in an idea like this. Everyone has their own view. We think it is important to talk about the bigger picture. Sceptics, very often, also have something useful to contribute.
- We are a global company and most of our work is overseas. We see what the rest of the world is doing, we see the infrastructure they are building, we see the growth of airports and seaports and we understand from all that experience that if UK wants to stay competitive in the global trading arena, we need to have the ability to connect the infrastructure. Maritime trade, air passengers and air cargo connected to an integrated rail system will help us moving forward in an environmentally friendly way.
- What happens after September when you will release the study?
- This is about having a debate. We think we need to be talking about where we want to be in 30 years and what kind of country we want our children to inherit from us.
The project is a series of discreet components that can be funded from the private sector. Each one of the components is deliverable and can be linked into one integrated hub.
With this project we wanted to wrap up some ideas and prepare a report which looks at a development opportunity, economical growth, planning aspects, environmental impact and how you realise the idea.
- So you are offering a vision, thinking that if people actually see it, they might be more open to the Thames Estuary Hub idea?
- Yes, we hope to offer a vision. That might sound little bit arrogant, but we are not the only people who have a vision and the great thing about us putting this forward is that we can welcome other people who equally have a vision and this becomes a team effort. We are entirely open to other good suggestions and input from other people.
- Usually projects like these live to become iconic for the country, what is iconic about your project?
- We don’t like the term “iconic”, as the more people think things are iconic, the less iconic it becomes. What’s unique about this project it’s what’s clever about it. In Britain we prefer to be clever about the way we spend money, invest and develop things; and the way we will take the economy forward is through being clever. So what’s potentially clever about this project is how you can link in transport systems with economic growth. How it can help to connect the Midlands and North/West, our manufacturing bases, to the South East; how that might overcome current North and South divide. How high speed rail will link into the Estuary, bringing transport not only from North and North West, but also potentially from Europe via Channel Tunnel. How a hub airport then can serve a very wide region and how you get expanded connectivity via high speed rail not only for long distance but also freeing capacity for local service. And, very importantly, how you integrate freight and create data rich environment for freight.
- How will you integrate this hub into the surrounding environment without disrupting it?
- I think it would be naive to say that we won’t cause the disruption. The key to success of this project is how you design it to minimise disruption and if you are disrupting how you mitigate it and how replace it, so you could actually leave the environment in a better condition that it was before. You have to remember that in the Estuary there have been decades of industrial development and there are a lot of very large brownfield sites. So there is an opportunity to revitalise the area, re-inject growth and jobs, which is something critical for the people in the area. And an airport, seaport and integrated transport network will be critical to that.
- In your announcement you mentioned the Hong Kong island airport, what kind of parallels you can draw with this project?
- If you look at the history of airport developments, most of the major cities that had an airport close to the centre at the certain point they said it is too congested, too noisy, it generates too much pollution, so we will move it. All over the world you will find examples of that. And people typically move it quite a long way away from the city centre. Hong Kong is a very good example of that. Moving it away from the city centre and then putting a very strong connectivity back to the existing centre, which creates a seamless flow from the city centre to the airport. This is absolutely critical in our view.
- There is a growing trend to build a city around the airport, creating an airport city. Your project looks at freight, rail, seaport and airport, which is somewhat all industrial; do you see a vision for urban life around the Thames Hub?
- Certainly. Airports have major workforces - Heathrow is generating maybe up to 100,000 secondary jobs, Thames Gateway Port - over 20,000 jobs. So there is a substantial employment that comes with air transport and maritime trade.
The role of a hub is to connect people and increasingly they are using airports as their destinations. Also, we are seeing a substantial growth of tourism from Asia and India. 20-30 years from now it will be something very important to our economy. Where will those people go? Paris, with a day trip to London, or the other way around? Looking forward it is very important to see how people get to us.
- What do you say to sceptics?
- People said it was madness to invest any money in an idea like this. Everyone has their own view. We think it is important to talk about the bigger picture. Sceptics, very often, also have something useful to contribute.
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