Plans for a new London airport in the Thames Estuary have won the backing of former Tory deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine.
He said he supports the scheme backed by London mayor Boris Johnson partly because it could mean the closure of Heathrow, which would present the UK with a “huge opportunity”.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, the ex-environment secretary said if he were a cabinet minister now “and it came up fore discussion, and the issue was, ‘shall we explore the option?’, my hand would go up.”
The £50 billion project handling 150 million passengers a year is seen as an alternative to a third runway at Heathrow, giving a boosting to the economy and attracting business to the UK.
Lord Heseltine said the UK needed to be “sharper” at seeing the overall national potential of big projects.