One current proposal is to build an airport at Cliffe in the Thames Estuary. To date, this has received mixed reports, with consultants for Kent County Council pointing out that primary air transport demand is to the west and north of London. Also, they feel it is unclear how major airlines could be persuaded to transfer their operations to this proposed new airport. However, with heavy congestion at the current London airports, passenger and carriers might see Cliffe as an attractive alternative, and certainly the residents of properties adjoining Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted would welcome such a scheme. The recent proposal by BAA to create more capacity in the South East by building three new runways over the next 30 years at London-Heathrow, -Gatwick and -Stansted Airports is not the panacea to reduce congestion, and even if planning permission were granted after the inevitable delays due to the public enquiries, it is only another short-term solution to a long-term problem.

In 1989, the House of Commons Select Committee raised the idea of joint military/civil airports in the UK. At that time, the committee identified five airfields within a 60-mile radius of London which were under utilised. Two of these were Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and Lyneham in Wiltshire. The latter only has a 7,800 ft runway, but Brize Norton is capable of accepting a Boeing 747 aircraft which needs over 9,000 ft of runway. RAF St Mawgan at Newquay in Cornwall, which is also capable of Boeing 747 operations, has been operating as a joint civil/military airport for several years; and proposals are under current consideration for RAF Leuchars, south of Dundee in Scotland, to be run as a joint civil/military facility. It is understood also that the UK Ministry of Defence is currently conducting a study involving Brize Norton, Lyneham and St Mawgan to decide which two of these three airfields should be retained for military operations. Surely, the UK government should be looking at the possibility of utilising these existing facilities and building the infrastructure necessary to provide the airport capacity which is required in the South East. In addition, it should be examining the possibility of further joint civil/military operations in other regions of the country.