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Roughly once a decade airport planners cast their eyes east of London into the marshes and wetlands of the Thames Estuary. In some sort of grotesque bring-forward diary the arguments for (largely its not somewhere else) and the arguments against (communities wiped out, landscapes re-modelled with massive...

Every year my colleague Rolf (Williams – Kent Communications Officer) gets the plum job of soaring 1,000ft up above the Thames Estuary in a micro-light. In his words this is “ a privileged, if precarious, position from which to visit the whole of the Greater Thames Futurescape, viewed from...

We’ve been shoulder to shoulder with the Friends of North Kent Marshes for over a decade campaigning to save this historic landscape and world class wildlife site from proposals to build a major new four runway airport. But to the people of the Hoo Peninsula it is also their home – as the...

The Space for Nature; Land for Life Conference on 28 th February was a key milestone for the Greater Thames. Over a hundred individuals, representing interests from across business, communities, local government, conservation and funders, came together to celebrate our previous successes and identify...

I admit that working for nature in the Greater Thames isn’t all about glitz and glamour. Not in comparison to the 2013 Brit Awards which will no doubt dazzle and shimmer in North Greenwich tonight. Take a conversation I had the other day about the fate of the dunlin. If you wanted to invent...

The Thames is a big old place! Although most of us wouldn’t necessarily associate it as being big on agriculture, this vital industry does have a place in as a historical food supplier for the UK’s burgeoning capital city. Together with partners, the RSPB works with farmers and landowners...

Kick starting 2013 with a blog about why the Greater Thames matters to him, is Tim Webb, RSPB London’s Communications Manager: Weekdays, my commute to and from work runs alongside the Thames and every time I’m alongside the river, the pedals turn more slowly. It’s an inspiring way...

The first document has just landed and is currently having its details unpacked. To readers of this blog the many and various proposals to build large airports in the Thames estuary have been regularly covered, here's some background . Sufficient it to say that we think this is a very bad and...

This blog has been following the story of many special places for wildlife and the people who work tirelessly to save them, nurture them and make them accessible for others to enjoy. It’s 100 years since Charles Rothschild’s idea that the best places for wildlife should be protected led...

In the latest guest post, Jon Fuller sets out the view from Essex where mad-cap estuary airport schemes are not new. Jon is an environmental campaigner from Southend and sets the latest plans for the Thames in a wider context. When London Mayor Boris Johnson first suggested an estuary airport, I dismissed...

Continuing our series of guest blogs from around the Thames estuary, here Rolf Williams the RSPB's Kent Communications Officer, takes to the skies Have you ever shopped at Bluewater in Kent, or how about Lakeside in Essex? They cater for tens of millions of shoppers each year. As I flew over them...

In most days, weeks – even decades, today would have been a defining moment in how our Government (the Westminster one at any rate) will deal with the little matter of our environment. That life-enhancing, enriching, sustaining, Britain-defining, tourism-boosting, world class, singing, croaking...

Yesterday I told you about what we did when the weather postponed our planned boat trip on the Thames to explore the footprint of the Isle of Grain four-runway airport concept proposed by Lord Foster. Sadly I missed out on the boat – but today the weather has relented and I just got this picture...

I love the coast – but I have to admit to being a land-lubber at heart. So heading off for the Thames this morning in full sunshine made me think that our planned boat trip would be running as planned. But the east coast has a mind of its own. Our voyage was to be an opportunity to take journalists...

The idea to build a major airport in the Thames is nothing new - the first suggestions came just after the Second World War. The latest wheeze would see four runways built on Kent's Isle of Grain, spilling over into the estuary itself with supporting infrastructure cutting through Kent and Essex...

Yesterday was World Wetland Day. It was also the 200 th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens – so I took the opportunity to link the two through the medium of the Thames Estuary, well known to Dickens and the setting of memorable scenes in Great Expectations. The Thames is also a coastal...

BBC 1’s Breakfast carried a report to mark the 200 anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens . The location report came from North Kent from the Medway Towns that Dickens knew as a child, from Cooling Church and from the evocative North Kent Marshes where Pip’s Great Expectations were launched...

Just over a week ago the Thames estuary in general and the Isle of Grain in North Kent in particular, were propelled into the media as the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, tried to stack the odds in favour of a Thames Estuary Airport in the forthcoming strategic review of aviation. Here’s a flavour...

I’m posting this at the end of long day in which the rhetoric around building a four runway airport smack bang in the Thames Estuary has gone up a couple of notches. It sounds like the story blurted out into the media – with overtones of posturing around the elections for the Mayor of...

Why is it that the UK’s coastal wetlands haven’t suffered the levels of destruction seen around the world? How a threat to the Thames estuary over 40 years ago revolutionised nature conservation. I enjoyed talking to Charlie Moores about the Thames and it endless airport proposals –...

Boris wants one. He really does. Lord Foster is the latest to design one. But time after time the proposals for an estuary airport in the Thames founder under the weight of reason, the massive costs and the unsustainable destruction of the coastal environment. That it could be done is not in any doubt...

For forty years we have been fighting proposals to concrete over vast swathes of the Thames estuary to construct a monster airport. Lord Foster’s latest sophisticated doodle pinpoints the Isle of Grain in north Kent (my home county, not that that is terribly relevant) as the location of a four...

Today it’s World Wetlands Day, an event that celebrates a landmark in wetland conservation. The Ramsar Convention was agreed in the Iranian town of Ramsar on 2 February 1971. The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especial as Waterfowl Habitat (to give it its full name) has...

Stop flogging it Boris. Just in case anyone is in any doubt – here’s our reaction to the latest attempt by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to breath life into the crazy idea of building an International Airport hub in the middle of the Thames Estuary. Today (Tuesday18 January), the...

Sandsculpture marking the campaign to stop Hunterston power station (picture courtesy of blueriverstudios ) Looking back through the year’s posts it’s clear that there’s been a focus on estuaries and coastal wetlands. While I’m happy to admit a personal bias towards these particular...