Proposals for a Thames Estuary airport will come under the microscope in Westminster today. The House of Commons Transport Select Committee will be hearing evidence from many people behind the various airport plans.

Huw Thomas of Foster + Partners, the architects behind plans for the world’s biggest airport on the Isle of Grain, will answer questions on the proposal while John Olsen, who is leading a consortium eyeing up Cliffe as the site of a three-runway airport, is also due to face MPs.
Medway Council’s communities chief Robin Cooper and Paul Outhwaite from the RSPB will make the case against the idea shortly afterwards. The government is due to make a decision on whether to build a new airport after the next election in 2015.

A report to the committee suggests an airport would not be commercially viable and would require a substantial public subsidy.
It says that because the value of the investment was significantly negative an investor would be unlikely to touch it.
A public subsidy of £10-£30 billion would be needed to get the airport built, the report by economics consultancy Oxera suggests.

The report’s authors have put the value of a new airport at £15.6 billion by calculating revenues from passenger charges and taking out operating costs.
In today’s money it would have costs of £43.7 billion, leaving a significant gap that would need to be made up.