The Roskill Commission (formally the Commission on the Third London Airport) was a

UK government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

commission charged with looking into finding a site for a new airport for London. Chaired by High Court judge Sir Eustace Roskill, it sat from 1968 to 1970 and published its report in January 1971. Since the 1950s, London's primary passenger airport had been at

Heathrow Heathrow Airport , also colloquially known as London Heathrow Airport and named ''London Airport'' until 1966, is the primary and largest international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdo ...

, with a second one at

Gatwick Gatwick Airport , also known as London Gatwick Airport (), is the secondary international airport serving London, West Sussex and Surrey. It is located near Crawley in West Sussex, south of Central London. In 2024, Gatwick was the second-bu ...

. The commission's aim was "to enquire into the timing of the need for a four-runway airport to cater for the growth of traffic at existing airports serving the London area, to consider the various alternative sites, and to recommend which site should be selected." Roskill's initial list of 78 sites was reduced to an intermediate list of 29, before detailed consideration of four short-listed locations: *

Cublington Cublington is a village and one of 110 civil parishes within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is about north of Aylesbury. The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means "Cubbel's estate". In the Domesday Book of ...

Foulness Foulness Island () is a closed island on the east coast of Essex in England, which is separated from the mainland by narrow creeks. In the 2001 census, the usually resident population of the civil parish was 212, living in the settlements of ...

* Nuthampstead *

Thurleigh Thurleigh is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Bedford, north Bedfordshire, England, situated around north of Bedford town centre. History Excavations have shown evidence the locality was occupied in the Iron-Age, Roman and Saxo ...

The Commission recommended that a site at

near

Wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

in Buckinghamshire (to the north-west of London) should be developed as London's third airport. The UK government rejected the commission's proposal for Cublington, but accepted a dissenting report by a member of the commission, Colin Buchanan, which recommended that a new airport should be developed at Foulness (later known as Maplin Sands) in Essex. An act of parliament was passed – the Maplin Development Act 1973 – that paved the way for a Thames Estuary Airport at Maplin Sands. However, the airport proposal was shelved after the

1973 oil crisis In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began after Eg ...

, and plans for a new third airport were replaced by smaller-scale redevelopment of Stansted, a site not short-listed by the Roskill Commission. In 2012 the UK government established the independent

Airports Commission The Airports Commission was an independent commission established in September 2012 by the Government of the United Kingdom to consider how the UK could "maintain its status as an international hub for aviation and immediate actions to improve ...

to look again at the future of London's airports.

Panel

The members of the seven-man Commission were: * Hon. Mr. Justice Roskill * Colin Buchanan, Professor of Transport,

Imperial College of Science and Technology Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a cultural district in South Kensington that included museums, ...

* Alfred Goldstein, Partner in R. Travers Morgan & Partners, Consulting Engineers * Arthur J. Hunt, Principal Planning Inspector, Ministry of Housing and Local Government * David Keith-Lucas, Professor of Aircraft Design, the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield; and President of the Royal Aeronautical Society * Arthur William Knight, Finance Director, Courtaulds Limited *

Alan Walters Sir Alan Arthur Walters (17 June 1926 – 3 January 2009) was a British economist who was best known as the Chief Economic Adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1981 to 1983 and (after his return from the United States) again for fi ...

, Professor of Econometrics and Social Statistics,

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

(later Cassel Professor of Economics in the University of London).

References

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External links

Maplin: the Treasury and London's third airport in the 1970s
1971 in the United Kingdom Airports in the London region Transport policy in the United Kingdom Transport in the United Kingdom Aviation history of the United Kingdom Aviation and the environment Public bodies and task forces of the United Kingdom government Proposed airports in the London region

Panel

See also

References

External links