Aviation head Davies says he will ignore abuse from Boris
SIR HOWARD Davies plans to “rise above this vulgar abuse” from Boris Johnson as he works to pick a site for a new runway or airport.
“As far as the Mayor’s concerned we don’t seem to have produced the answer he wants us to produce,” Davies told MPs at yesterday’s Transport Select Committee.
Davies’ panel last month shortlisted Heathrow and Gatwick for a new runway but said it needed to do more work on the idea of a new hub in the Thames Estuary before ruling it in or out by the autumn.
Johnson, who has backed an estuary airport at the Isle of Grain, said over the weekend that the Davies commission’s treatment of the estuary had been “gloopy, tangled and quite labyrinthine”.
Davies yesterday argued that for a new airport to be built, the government would have to take over Heathrow and run it until the hub was finished, as the plan would doom Heathrow commercially.