Charles Dickens' great-great-grandson has slammed government plans for a Thames Estuary airport in the countryside made famous his ancestor.

Gerald Dickens, 48, claimed 'Boris Island' would ruin the estuary marshland, which famously provided the setting for Great Expectations - one of Dicken's greatest novels.

With this year marking the bicentenary of Dickens' birth his descendant revealed he had read "with horror" plans to build on the marshland, bordering the area of Kent where the novelist lived and died.

The proposed airport, which has been designed by renowned architect Lord Foster, will carry 150 million passengers a year - twice as many as Heathrow - sparking angry protests from local families and environmentalists.

Gerald has defended the wild space as crucial to Britain's economic, environmental and cultural "heritage".

He said: "I read with horror renewed plans to situate yet another London airport on the north Kent marshes.

"Great Expectations has to be one of the greatest, one of the most atmospheric opening passage of any book and Charles Dickens knew the countryside so well that he captured it forever.

"What a terrible thing it would be if our only idea of the Marsh country was taken from his words.

"As it is, we can stand alone in the Churchyard, we can look at the gravestones, we can gaze across the river towards the sea and we can stand in the footsteps of one of our country’s finest sons.

"My great-great-grandfather loved this part of Kent, he lived and died in Higham, he took his honeymoon in Chalk and he often walked across the Marshes for inspiration.

"I’m sure there are many objections from all corners: environmental, economic, and logistical but my fear is that we lose an area of the country so closely linked with our heritage and culture."

He added: "The Hoo Peninsula is not only a setting for one novel, it is the inspiration for many scenes, many characters and a catalyst for some of the most important reforms in the history of Great Britain.

"For that reason alone we should preserve and celebrate its heritage."

The government is due to start a consultation on airport aviation capacity for the south east of England before the parliamentary summer recess in July.

If approved, the plan, which has been heavily backed by Boris Johnson, will construct a four runway airport at the Isle of Grain in north Kent.

The plans come amid fears that the capital will lose out to competition from Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt if it fails to increase its capacity for air travellors in the south east.

The Isle of Grain forms part of a small outcrop of land in north Kent called the Hoo Peninsula, where the north kent marshes are also based.

The area is a unique wetland habitat, which provides a home to 300,000 migrating wildfowl and other birds annually.

Local campaigners say an airport on the scale proposed would see the whole of north Kent being concreted at a cost of up to #70 billion.

Airline industry experts, including the outspoken Willie Walsh agree the airport would be on the wrong side of london and come at too high a cost too much to make it worthwhile.