Newport Liberal Democrat Councillor, Hugh Clark is fairly unequivocal in this morning’s Western Mail on the proposal to revive plans for a Severn Estuary International Airport near Llanwern.
Newport City Council have received newly submitted plans to site the airport on land reclaimed from the Severn Estuary, to the south-east of Redwick. Its terminals would be to the north of the operational part of Llanwern Steelworks and southeast of Underwood in the Bishton and Wilcrick area.
Hugh comments: “My biggest concern is the environmental impact it would have. This is at least the second time they’ve flown this idea. It’s been going on a number of years now.
“But as far as I’m concerned, there are already ample airports serving our area – I question the need for another and I have real concerns about the impact it would have on the environment.”
The paper records that when initial plans for the £2bn facility were submitted to the government in January 2003, the project involved building runways on a man-made island in the Severn. Its backers hoped Severnside International Airport could open in 2010 and create 13,000 jobs.
But the plans nose-dived just 11 months later when the government released its Future of Air Transport white paper, which said Cardiff would remain the main South Wales airport.
According to the white paper, Severnside International Airport would “struggle to attract sufficient traffic to be financially viable”.
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