A Chelmsford engineer who helped design the 1960s Ford Cortina Mk11, has come up with a new Essex international airport plan he says makes Stansted's expansion into precious north Essex countryside unnecessary.

He calls it Britannic Island International and it would be at the Foulness Island site of a 1960s proposal for a third London airport.

Mr Roy Haynes of Danbury, has come up with the island scheme because he believes none of the Government's present proposals meet the environmental or business needs of the British people, or truly meet air traffic demands for the next 30 years.

Mr Haynes, described by former Ford boss Sir Terence Beckett as one of Britain's leading industrial designers, worked on the Cortina, making it a market share record-breaker.

Now he has spent months researching and drawing up a new airport layout for Foulness which he is using to challenge the expansion of Stansted, Heathrow, and the mooted new airport at Cliffe, Kent which are out for consultation by the Government at the moment.

Mr Haynes of Barley Mead says Foulness could be the largest international airport in Europe. Most of the the land is owned by the defence ministry and would cost the government little. Take off and landing could all mostly over the sea, he says.

With six runways he calculates that 85 per cent of movements would not affect any residential areas of south Essex.

He says that the airport could also bring a new Southend Leisure Park and possibly an Olympic standard stadium as well as new residential villages and economic spin offs.

"Any of the white paper proposals at the moment would be a monumental environmental disaster. Stansted has become a blight on the rural countryside. New runways would be a total disaster for a most beautiful part of the south east corner of England," he said.

But Mr Haynes admits he has an epic struggle to get his idea given credence.

"To achieve it, Euro International requires the assembly of a powerful financial group of investors in an entirely new corporation I regard it as a property investment with an airport as an adjunct-planning gain on a giant scale," he said.

He believes on and offshore capital would be available for the scheme because it is not "derived from old RAF aerodromes like airports of the past."

A new Foulness would "make a contribution to the quality of life which sets an example of how demand for modern air travel can be integrated into society without impairing what is treasured so dearly by us all."

On Tuesday he received a letter from Lord Mowbray, joint chairman of Marinair the Thames Estuary Airport project based in Kent, saying he had examined Mr Haynes' plans and would be in touch.

Published Friday October 11, 2002

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