Bitter row erupts as ‘Boris Island’ plan is sunk

London Evening Standard/LondonA blazing row erupted yesterday between Boris Johnson and aviation chief Sir Howard Davies after the mayor’s plans for a Thames Estuary airport were sunk.Following talks with Sir Howard, Johnson said he now believed that not only was west London facing a third runway at Heathrow, but also a fourth.However, Airports Commission head Sir Howard strongly denied that he had told City Hall chiefs in private that a fourth runway would be needed at Heathrow.As accusations flew, Johnson condemned the Airports Commission’s decision to rule out a “Boris Island” airport as “myopic”.But Sir Howard warned that it would have been “reckless” to have pressed ahead with the estuary proposal which could have cost more than £100bn, caused huge economic disruption, required wildlife habitats to be moved miles, impacted on the airspace of other airports and faced the danger of bird strikes on planes.Vowing not to abandon his plans for an estuary airport, Johnson dismissed the commission as an “exercise designed to get a U-turn” over Heathrow to allow the next government to support its expansion.“The most interesting thing that Howard has said, is that not only will he recommend a new runway either at Heathrow or at Gatwick, he’s still leaving that up in the air,” he told LBC radio.“But he said that by 2020 we are going to have to come back and go for a fourth runway. That is absolutely jaw-dropping because it means that this whole agony, this whole nightmare, this whole uncertainty over west London, and indeed huge parts of London, is going to continue.“It will be complete groundhog day in five years’ time.”But Sir Howard rejected the suggestion that he had signalled to Johnson, or his chief aviation adviser Daniel Moylan, that he believed that Heathrow would eventually grow to become a four-runway superhub.“Daniel Moylan, on the (BBC radio) Today programme, said that in talking to the mayor on Sunday, I had said that there would need to be a fourth runway at Heathrow. That is not true, I did not say that,” Sir Howard, a former boss of the London School of Economics told the Standard.He added that when the commission announces its decision next June, after the general election, for a new runway by 2030, it will then propose a process to recommend a second new runway which would almost certainly be needed by 2050.Johnson later said that Sir Howard had not specifically said that there would need to be a fourth runway at Heathrow but had made clear that he believed two runways at airports would be required over future decades.The mayor believes that this means the west London airport would get at least one more runway “no matter what”, even if the initial decision is to expand Gatwick.He has branded the proposal for a third runway at Heathrow as “barbaric”, given the impact that it will have on the local community, but he has also advocated the need for a bigger hub airport in Britain.“The logic of his argument on hubs points him towards Heathrow now,” Sir Howard added.The commission has shortlisted two options for another runway at Heathrow, either by extending the northern runway so that it can be used for both take-offs and landings at the same time, or a new one to the north-west of the airport, as well as a second runway at Gatwick.Responding angrily to the torpedoing of his plans, Johnson said: “In one myopic stroke the commission has set the debate back by half a century and consigned their work to the long list of vertically-filed reports on aviation expansion that are gathering dust on a shelf in Whitehall.”But Sir Howard said the risks with going ahead with an estuary airport, which could have led to Heathrow closing with a £60bn cost for the taxpayer were too great.“To roll the dice on a very risky project, where delays and overruns are highly likely, would be reckless,” he said. Stewart Wingate, chief executive of Gatwick, yesterday  promised to step up his wooing of Johnson to back a second runway at the West Sussex airport.