On Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 13:22:01 on Sat, 17
Jan 2009, Recliner remarked:
Not on the flood plain, but on an artificial island, like Hong Kong.

Also Kansai and Kobe airports, which really are artificial islands.

And Incheon (aka Seoul International)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ye...g_location.svg

Maybe we could do something similar - fill in the whole Thames Estuary?

I think i was pimping this idea a while ago. I'd been looking at the
various epic works the Dutch did, particularly the building of the
IJsselmeer, and it occurred to me that we could do something similar. Not
just to the Thames estuary - to the entire Channel, between East Anglia
and the Netherlands. As with the IJ, you'd not totally close up the space,
but leave large canals running along the line of the existing coast (some
of it, at least), so that there was still access to the ports (and to
hydraulically separate the polders from the existing land).

This would not only create land for housing in the overcrowded southeast,
as well as a huge amount of agricultural land, but enable direct rail
links to northern Europe (including a Felixstowe - Rotterdam freight
line), provide opportunities to create huge amounts of ecologically vital
wetlands, and effectively eliminate the flood and erosion risk to the
Thames estuary and East Anglia. We could even build a new home for the
Trident fleet at the same time, to shut the jocks up.

I shall write to the environment secretary immediately. Where can one buy
a pen with green ink these days?

tom

--
.... but when you spin it it looks like a dancing foetus!

"Miles Bader" wrote in message

"Recliner" writes:
Also Kansai and Kobe airports, which really are artificial islands.

Isn't the Kansai airport sinking? A bit of miscalculation etc.

I believe so. As I recall, they did allow for some sinking, but the real
problem is that it's not sinking uniformly, which is much worse.

"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:22:01 on
Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Recliner remarked:
Not on the flood plain, but on an artificial island, like Hong
Kong.

Also Kansai and Kobe airports, which really are artificial islands.

And Incheon (aka Seoul International)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ye...g_location.svg

Maybe we could do something similar - fill in the whole Thames
Estuary?

Why, when we have the whole of the Isle Of Grain to build an airport on?

Because the people on the "island|" kicked up a fuss,

(and I think there might be some nature reserve there)

tim

"Recliner" wrote
You ve got to hand it to those Tories, first they play the environment
card to stop expansion at Heathrow whilst Boris goes off and builds
another airport in the Thames flood plain.
Not on the flood plain, but on an artificial island, like Hong Kong.

They could build a peak-hours only airport at Goodwin Sands.

Sorry, I meant low tide only.
--

Andrew

"tim....." wrote...
Maybe we could do something similar - fill in the whole Thames
Estuary?
Why, when we have the whole of the Isle Of Grain to build an airport on?
Because the people on the "island|" kicked up a fuss,

There's always Sheppey - fairly flat.
But there's already an airport at Manston, Thanet - just 68 minutes* out of
St. Pancras via class 395s.

They even called it "London Manston" for a while.
I think they stopped when the one passenger airline that flew there went
bust.

*Plus a short bike ride past the potato fields**.
But they could easily build a short rail link to Minster-ish.

**Bicycle not supplied.
--

Andrew

"If A is success in life, then A = x + y + z.
Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut." ~ Albert Einstein

"Andrew Heenan" wrote

They even called it "London Manston" for a while.
I think they stopped when the one passenger airline that flew there went
bust.

*Plus a short bike ride past the potato fields**.
But they could easily build a short rail link to Minster-ish.

There was at one time a branch from near Birchington (facing Faversham) to
Manston Airfield, but I don't know either when it was built, orwhen it was
closed and lifted.

Peter

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 13:22:01 on
Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Recliner remarked:
Not on the flood plain, but on an artificial island, like Hong Kong.

Also Kansai and Kobe airports, which really are artificial islands.

And Incheon (aka Seoul International)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ye...g_location.svg

Maybe we could do something similar - fill in the whole Thames Estuary?

I think i was pimping this idea a while ago. I'd been looking at the
various epic works the Dutch did, particularly the building of the
IJsselmeer, and it occurred to me that we could do something similar.
Not just to the Thames estuary - to the entire Channel, between East
Anglia and the Netherlands. As with the IJ, you'd not totally close up
the space, but leave large canals running along the line of the existing
coast (some of it, at least), so that there was still access to the
ports (and to hydraulically separate the polders from the existing land).

This would not only create land for housing in the overcrowded
southeast, as well as a huge amount of agricultural land, but enable
direct rail links to northern Europe (including a Felixstowe - Rotterdam
freight line), provide opportunities to create huge amounts of
ecologically vital wetlands, and effectively eliminate the flood and
erosion risk to the Thames estuary and East Anglia. We could even build
a new home for the Trident fleet at the same time, to shut the jocks up.

I shall write to the environment secretary immediately. Where can one
buy a pen with green ink these days?

It's been suggested before!

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/200...of-doggerland/

“If the extensive schemes for the drainage of North Sea are carried out
according to the plan illustrated above, which was conceived by a group
of eminent English scientists, 100,000 square miles will be added to the
overcrowded continents of Europe. The reclaimed land will be walled in
with enormous dykes, similar to the Netherland dykes, to protect it from
the sea, and the various rivers flowing into the North Sea will have
their courses diverted to different outlets by means of canals.”

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

"Peter Masson" wrote ...
There was at one time a branch from near Birchington (facing Faversham) to
Manston Airfield, but I don't know either when it was built, or when it
was
closed and lifted.

Wow!
I never knew that.
No help now, the North Kent line is officially the poor relation to the
Hitachi Line!
--

Andrew

On Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Arthur Figgis wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Roland Perry wrote:

Maybe we could do something similar - fill in the whole Thames Estuary?

I think i was pimping this idea a while ago. I'd been looking at the
various epic works the Dutch did, particularly the building of the
IJsselmeer, and it occurred to me that we could do something similar. Not
just to the Thames estuary - to the entire Channel, between East Anglia and
the Netherlands. As with the IJ, you'd not totally close up the space, but
leave large canals running along the line of the existing coast (some of
it, at least), so that there was still access to the ports (and to
hydraulically separate the polders from the existing land).

This would not only create land for housing in the overcrowded southeast,
as well as a huge amount of agricultural land, but enable direct rail links
to northern Europe (including a Felixstowe - Rotterdam freight line),
provide opportunities to create huge amounts of ecologically vital
wetlands, and effectively eliminate the flood and erosion risk to the
Thames estuary and East Anglia. We could even build a new home for the
Trident fleet at the same time, to shut the jocks up.

I shall write to the environment secretary immediately. Where can one buy a
pen with green ink these days?

It's been suggested before!

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/200...of-doggerland/

Curses! This is just like that time i invented savoury doughnuts only to
find out that the Chinese had been making them for hundreds of years!

I think my plan (the geographical one, not the doughnut one) is more
nuanced than theirs, though - i'm not suggesting landlocking much of the
present coast, nor building the whole thing as one big giant polder.

A link in the comments leads here, which is genius/bonkers and worth a
look:

http://www.worlddreambank.org/P/PLANETS.HTM

Also, i've read that Stephen Baxter, one of our best and most nerdy
science fiction writers, has written a book, to be published this year,
along the lines of 'what if in the Iron Age (or whenever) when the north
sea was land, the people who lived there built a giant dyke around it, and
it never flooded?' which also sounds quite genius/bonkers.

tom

--
It's just really ****ing good and that's all. -- Gabe, on the Macintosh

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 13:22:01 on
Sat, 17 Jan 2009, Recliner remarked:
Not on the flood plain, but on an artificial island, like Hong Kong.

Also Kansai and Kobe airports, which really are artificial islands.

And Incheon (aka Seoul International)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ye...g_location.svg

Maybe we could do something similar - fill in the whole Thames Estuary?

I think i was pimping this idea a while ago. I'd been looking at the
various epic works the Dutch did, particularly the building of the
IJsselmeer, and it occurred to me that we could do something similar.
Not just to the Thames estuary - to the entire Channel, between East
Anglia and the Netherlands. As with the IJ, you'd not totally close up
the space, but leave large canals running along the line of the existing
coast (some of it, at least), so that there was still access to the
ports (and to hydraulically separate the polders from the existing land).

This would not only create land for housing in the overcrowded
southeast, as well as a huge amount of agricultural land, but enable
direct rail links to northern Europe (including a Felixstowe - Rotterdam
freight line), provide opportunities to create huge amounts of
ecologically vital wetlands, and effectively eliminate the flood and
erosion risk to the Thames estuary and East Anglia. We could even build
a new home for the Trident fleet at the same time, to shut the jocks up.

I shall write to the environment secretary immediately. Where can one
buy a pen with green ink these days?

tom

This will be useful when we get an application from Flanders. Clue:
what was the third most common flag at the last night of the Proms?

--
Corporate society looks after everything. All it asks of anyone, all it
has ever asked of anyone, is that they do not interfere with management
decisions. -From “Rollerball”