Update: Report Released November 2012

Testrad have released a report with the latest proposals for a Thames Estuary airport to be known as the  ’London Jubilee International Airport’. The aim of the paper is to provide a description of how to create a feasible and efficient airport with offshore runways. It describes a five runway airport in its initial phase with potential for expansion to six runways. The report was pubished in the Sunday Times on 25th November 2012.

Read the full Report here.

Update: Report Released 4th January 2011

GLA and TFL have released the report prepared by the Mayor’s Steering Group and the report prepared as background by the Consultants’ Group. The text of the press release can be found here.
Download the full Steering Group report here, and the Consultants’ Group report here.

The Thames Estuary Research and Development Company

The Thames Estuary Research and Development Company (Testrad) has been established to make sure that the UK is in the best possible position to make good use of the infrastructure possibilities offered by the Estuary. These include the need for flood defence, for use of wind and tidal power, for more extensive crossings of the Estuary by road and rail, for shipping and potentially for airport facilities. Consideration of these investments must be made in a complete fashion and the trade-offs between competing uses analysed as well as the potential synergies.

Testrad exists to bring together those concerned to fund this research and those concerned that it should be done to high standards of independence. It aims to create the framework in which decisions can be made about the most appropriate investments and funding decisions reached.

The company has been formed by Doug Oakervee and Bridget Rosewell. Doug was until recently chairman of Crossrail Ltd and saw this project through to the start of its implementation phase, while Bridget Rosewell was Chief Economic Adviser to the GLA from 2003-12 and was responsible for developing the analysis which made Crossrail an acceptable investment from a government perspective.

The impetus to form the company has arisen from the report which Doug Oakervee undertook to prepare for the Mayor of London on the feasibility of an Estuary Airport and which revealed the need for much wider investigation. Download the report.