Tag Archives: airport

Brandt New Airport to open in time for London 2012 Olympics

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So there will actually be a brand new airport open just in time for the 2012 London Olympics.

Complete with its own high speed station and a terminal capable of handling 50m pax per year, situated between two runways. It will be a major hub for Easyjet, Ryanair and AB. Visitors will be able to reach the Olympic stadium in about 40 minutes, stopping by at the parliament or even the zoo if they wish. There’s only one small problem…….

….. it is in Berlin!

Unfortunately, this is no laughing matter. Frankfurt Airport has also been able to build a third runway as Heathrow bursts at the seems.

I have been following the new Berlin airport project for a while, and it has not been without controversy and delay. Yet somehow, the Germans can show us that it is possible to complete major infrastructure projects and deliver on long held promises. when I read that the opening date for this new ‘Brandenburg International’ or ‘Berlin Brandt’ airport is 5th June next year, I thought to myself ‘that’s quite close to the London Olympics.  How ironic that after some 10 years of wrangling, this airport is opened just as London takes centre stage – yet myriad airport projects were promised in the UK to meet this deadline.

Now every UK airport project has to stand or fall on its own merits, and it needs to have a business case which goes long beyond 2 weeks of games. But just think if all of this had been built in time for the games:

  1. Second runway at Stansted.
  2. New terminal at Stansted.
  3. Third runway at Heathrow.
  4. Runway extension at Birmingham (now in preparatory phase).
  5. Second runway at Birmingham.

Instead, we just have to do with yet another airport being added to London’s long list of out-of-the-way sheds. At least Easyjet will be ready with 10 new routes from Southend Airport in time for the Olympics, even if very few of them will be of interest to Olympic teams or spectators.

Now let’s see what happens if FIFA cleans up its act, England put together a successful bid for World Cup 2026, and a high-speed maglev network is promised and delivered by then, on-time and under-budget. Pig just cleared for take-off from Stansted runway 22 Left!

A local rant about transport integration

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I’ve just thrown up a post on my personal blog about a new development around Coventry Railway station, which really should include a proper multi-modal interchange between bus, taxi and rail. Sadly, Coventry Airport does not look like it will offer any passenger flights in the near future, but any scheme which improves bus access to Coventry Station will also mean better access to Birmingham Airport, which is just 10 minutes by train from Coventry.

Thinking around Europe, and particularly to countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany, it is easy to praise their public transport systems for being efficient and integrated. Such a dream might not seem so easy with so many different bus and train operators plying for trade, but what has this current government achieved in its 12 years of promising to bring more integrated transport? Putting my Conservative, profit driven thinking cap on, surely any opportunity to combine transport modes, increase property values and open up new development land should be grabbed before it is too late.

One such scheme is happening right here in Coventry, under the brand name of ‘Friar Gate’. The design seems generally quite reasonable, but couldn’t it be so much more exciting if they rebranded it as “Cov Central”, and made it totally accessible from any part of the city by bike, bus, car or train? Such a scheme might be a little bit more bold than the current one, but it would at least provide a chance to connect everything together, something which could be such a symbolic gesture in this City of Peace and Reconciliation.

And the bonus? Good bye Pool Meadow – a dingy, ugly and badly designed bus station which merits no Architectural distinction whatsoever. It might inconvenience the Gala bingo players a little, but it would bring a much greater prize to the rest of the city.

I hope my references here can be of interest to people who have no connection with the city of Coventry, although you are probably quite small in number! Coventry started the whole twinning junket, and we’re now linked with some 23 cities around the world. You can also fly over Coventry in an instant using Google maps – our city centre really is quite compact – but still big enough for the distance between bus and train stations to be a major disabling factor in encouraging more people to use public transport.