Since the end of World War II, the UK’s major civil airports have been run by the Ministry of Aviation. In 1966, Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Prestwick were grouped together and run by the British Airports Authority (BAA) under the chairmanship of Sir Peter Masefield. Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports were later added, and Southampton joined much later. Masefield was convinced that the third London airport should be Stansted, then a small public airport with a large runway built for the American air force.
This sparked continuous controversy, resulting in the Roskill Commission, which was to consider all possible sites. Roskill gave the government a choice of four: Cublington, Nuthampstead, Thurleigh, and Foulness, later called Maplin. The Commission chose Cublington following a detailed cost/benefit analysis. There was a dissenting opinion by the transport planner Sir Colin Buchanan, who favoured Maplin.
Fast-forward 40 years and the Thames estuary is again being looked at as the solution for airport capacity. This is due to the worldwide civil aviation business growing at an average of 5% a year since the 1950s, with occasional recessions and wars that can delay the effects for a year or two. The late Sir Peter Masefield’s opinion that Heathrow and Gatwick would run out of capacity during the 1980s was incorrect, as more breathing space was wrung out of the system, but the crunch may be happening now.
David Hurst, an aviation consultant and former press officer with the British Airports Authority, has delved into the memory and archives, including government papers in the National Archives, the annual reports of BAA Plc and the Port of London Authority, and the Civil Aviation Authority’s 2011 statistics. Current fuel prices can be found on the International Air Transport Association website, though there are no surviving archives from the BAA Ltd predecessor. The PLA archives are in the Docklands Museum, though their Maplin boxes have not been consulted and remain unsorted.
Maplin
Sir Edward Heath’s Conservative government decided to back the Maplin option in July 1971. On 28 September 1972, the first meeting of the confidential Maplin Project Management Committee was held under the auspices of the Department of the Environment to co-ordinate the work. A major obstacle was seen as the moving of the military firing range from Shoeburyness, east of Southend, and clearing the site of projectiles. After some reluctance, the Ministry of Defence eventually employed a civilian workforce of 200 people to carry out the clearance work. It was decided that only a depth of 1.5 metres was necessary, based on tests on Concorde and VC10 aircraft.
The Maplin Development Authority, tasked with reclaiming the 30 square miles of land required for the new airport and sea port, held its first official meeting on 6 November 1973. Sir Frank Marshall, the Chairman, reported that investigations indicated the area was ‘an area exceptionally suitable for reclamation at a lower cost than was previously envisaged’. The Dutch were particularly helpful in providing their experience in such matters.
In March 1973, Norman Payne, then Chief Executive of the British Airports Authority, announced broad plans for the airport. When it opened, it would have a single runway and one terminal. By the late 1990s, the plan was for four runways, each of 4,250 metres, and 10 terminals arranged as a spine between the runways. Access would be by a non-stop rail service from Kings Cross, taking 40 minutes, and a motorway link from the planned London Ringway. The airport was expected to handle 32 million passengers annually by 1986 and 120 million when completed in the late 1990s.
The Port of London Authority (PLA) had identified the potential of Maplin a decade earlier, and had extended its area of responsibility to include the site. It had seen the need for a major deep-water container port and a terminal for super-tankers, and was eager to start construction. Aircraft would approach and depart entirely over the sea, with only 400 houses within the 35NNI noise contour compared to 250,000 at Heathrow.
The estimated cost of the entire project, including urbanisation, was around £1,000m by the 1990s. Sir Edward Heath’s Conservative government decided to back the Maplin option in July 1971, and the Maplin Development Authority held its first official meeting on 6 November 1973. The airport was expected to handle 32 million passengers annually by 1986, and 120 million when completed in the late 1990s. Access would be by a non-stop rail service from Kings Cross, taking 40 minutes, and a motorway link from the planned London Ringway. The Port of London Authority saw the potential of Maplin a decade earlier and was eager to start construction of a major deep-water container port and a terminal for super-tankers. Aircraft would approach and depart entirely over the sea, with only 400 houses within the 35NNI noise contour compared to 250,000 at Heathrow. The estimated cost of the entire project was around £1,000m by the 1990s.
Problems
In October 1973, the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War caused the price of crude oil to skyrocket, from US$3 a barrel to US$12 (or US$60 at 2011 prices – today’s price is around US$129 a barrel). This resulted in a 70% increase in petrol prices at the pump, triggering the first fuel crisis.
In February 1974, a general election resulted in a hung parliament with Labour forming a minority government under Harold Wilson. On 8 May 1974, the Department of the Environment wrote to the Maplin Development Authority instructing them not to incur further costs and to plan to shut down by 30 June. The Cabinet confirmed the cancellation at their meeting on 16 July 1974.
This raises the question: what if the Maplin project had gone ahead?
The closure of Stansted and Southend airports would have been inevitable, with the land likely to be used for housing or industrial estates. Development of Luton airport would have been curtailed and much of its traffic would have moved elsewhere, while Manston would have shut when the RAF moved out. Heathrow would have stopped at three terminals and two runways, and Gatwick would have remained with a single terminal and one runway, with their aircraft movements capped at 1980 levels.
The lack of an additional seaport at Maplin would have meant that Felixstowe docks would not have happened, and port development on the Thames estuary may have been different. This could have resulted in London’s development towards the east happening sooner, and less urban growth in west London and along the M4 corridor, as well as the Crawley/Burgess Hill area. East Anglia may have seen more progress, especially in Essex.
Whether the airlines would have used Maplin is unclear. Moving the infrastructure of a home base is complex, so UK airlines would have faced serious decisions. Overseas carriers rarely consider a particular route more than a season or two ahead, so they are more flexible. However, the large scheduled carriers prefer to work on the honeypot principle and swarm in one place even if facilities are better elsewhere.
The panic caused by the escalating oil price rise did not last. Air passenger figures for the London area peaked at 29.41m in 1973, dropped by two million in 1974 and were back at 31.03m in 1976. In 2011, the six London area airports handled a total of 133.62m, nearly 14m more than the planned capacity of the completed Maplin. Had the Maplin project gone ahead, the consequences would have been far-reaching.
