Foster reveals plans for UK infrastructure overhaul
Thames estuary aerial view of Foster airport
Source: Foster & PartnersNorman Foster has revealed plans for a radical overhaul of the UK’s infrastructure provision built around a major transport hub in the Thames Estuary.
Foster & Partners and Halcrow have produced a comprehensive study of Britain’s infrastructure requirements and how they might be met.
Plans for a Thames Hub have been trailed previously, but the report also contains suggestions including an infrastructure “spine” running the length of the UK. This would run parallel to a high-speed rail line and involve burying water, data and energy lines in soil excavated for the railway, providing a visual barrier in the process.
The Thames Hub proposals are also fleshed out in more detail. An international airport is proposed on the Isle of Grain in the Thames Estuary next to a new river barrage, with rail, road and shipping networks extending around the UK.
An orbital rail link would be built around London, tracing the existing line of the M25. The report claims that such a project could remove 4,000 lorries a day from the motorway and reduce rail journeys across the capital by an hour.
High-speed rail would connect London to cities in the north, as well as providing links to ports in Felixstowe, Tilbury and Southampton in an attempt to shift freight distribution to the rail network and relieve pressure from Britain’s roads.
The report has been funded by Foster & Partners with Halcrow and economics consultancy Volterra Partners. There is as yet no suggestion that any of the proposals will be adopted by the government.
However, the report does suggest ways in which the plans might be paid for. The authors acknowledge the lack of public money available and suggest private sector funding models using capital from investors such as sovereign wealth funds.
Related Articles
- Johnson renews backing for Foster’s estuary airport
10 May 2012
- Foster promotes Thames Hub plans
5 December 2011
- Osborne to announce £30bn infrastructure plan
28 November 2011
- Should we build an airport in the Thames Estuary?
11 November 2011
- Foster’s breadth of vision is what the country needs
11 November 2011
- £500 million Growing Places fund to be announced
7 November 2011
- It’s time to foster change
4 November 2011
- Farrell attacks Foster's plan for Thames Estuary airport
12 October 2011
- Foster & Partners plan Thames Estuary airport
1 August 2011
- Is the dream of the Thames Gateway dead?
05 November 2010
- Farrell favours low-carbon model for Thames Gateway
5 November 2009
- Is the Thames Estuary airport better than a bigger Heathrow?
21 November 2008
Have your say
Sign in to make a comment on this story.
Sign InDesktop Site | Mobile Site
Readers' comments (10)
Excellent peice of work. Considered, comprehensive and prepared to look at the bigger picture. I doubt our government, whatever the political colour, would have the intelligence or the will to address this.
A grand vision to improve Britain? - this guy should get into politics. Oh, wait a minute....
Over a century on and the bright idea is a rail line from London to Scotland.
Will they ramp up their thinking to include a second, competing line?
Oh wait. that's been tried before hasn't it?
We are looking at a more ambitious scheme to site an mega-airport and new city state the size the size of Taiwan midway between London and the Netherlands, with high speed rail and motorway connections to the UK and continental Europe.
Whether or not one agrees with the proposal, this is a very inspiring piece of work!
Bulldozing - and the word used here by Foster is "holistic". Unfortunately it is only one very quick fast side of the coin, and this is the concern with reliance on a single firm which is not known for its democratic practices in the broad sense of the term. We in this country don't hand over power to one person to stitch up the whole country.
I'm just wondering what the aircraft will be using for fuel by the time this absurd, vainglorious project is built (not that it ever will be).
Well done to Foster and Halcrow for considering a problem which Governments have apparently been side-stepping for a long time. I have no idea what "sovereign wealth funds" are but it was sensible to look at funding options. I suspect that recent Governments, being of a timid disposition, have shied away from the subject because of the potential cost. Britain's infrastructure needs a major overhaul ? That would be a polite way of putting it.
Whilst the creation of a well-planned, 'holisic' transport solution for the UK is to be welcomed in principle, this can not be at the expense of laying waste to the natural environment by concreteing over thousands of hectares of environmentally valuable open land. The airport proposal that has been shown is truly shocking in its insensitivity to its context. The Thames Estuary is the last great wilderness in Southeast England and a natural environment of international importance. As indicated the proposals would seriously endanger wild bird poplulations, compromise and pollute the marine environment, hugely raise air pollution levels over East London, create major disturbance to N Kent and S Essex urban areas and entail massive carbon emissions both in construction and use. Economically overall benefits are highly dubious as replacement of Heathrow could see a major decline in the West London economy and waste the billions already invested in existing infrastructure. We have been here before of course and anyone interested should check out the history of the ill-fated Maplin Airport project from the 1970's. Like now, there was a political arrogance that areas east of London were available as a low-value frontier ready for exploitation. At least with Maplin, the proposals were set away from the sensitive inner Estuary. It would seem that Foster is vying for the least environmentally-friendly architect award - or is it a fiendish scheme to get rid of those bothersome planes flying over Battersea?
FLAB why are you always self promoting ?