Building an airport in the mouth of the Thames Estuary would threaten London’s already shaky flood barrier.

A child building a dam in a brook knows that the level of the brook will rise upstream of the obstruction. While the four-runway, 24-hour airport which is being mooted, would not completely dam the River Thames it would go someway to taking up a third of its width. This would mean the incoming tide would be funneled and therefore would rise creating a problem for the already overstretched Thames Barrier at Woolwich.

Boris Johnson will make Ken Livingstone look like Mother Theresa if this environmentally apocalyptic scheme goes ahead.