Maplin Sands Airport

Model of the proposed Maplin Sands Airport development on show to the press in the 1970s.

An article in The Guardian, 'King's Cross airport? The outlandish plans for London that almost got built' includes this photograph of a model of the once proposed Maplin Sands airport development, planned for the island of Foulness and the tidal sandbanks in the Essex Archipelago.

Read more about that with some fascinating (but frustratingly small) illustrations here.

Friends of the Earth joined protests against the airport with their Maplin Manifesto.

Thames estuary airport

The outer Thames estuary airport plan, which just seems wrong on so many different levels, one wonder how any money was ever raised to promote it. Developers the Thames Estuary Research and Development Company (TESTRAD) have made suggestions about what should happen to Heathrow in their airport scenario, I've written about this as a Permaculture Garden[ing] Suburb here.