Sprawled across a 1,000-acre swath of reclaimed riverbed and post-industrial ruin on the Essex coast, the London Gateway project is a half-formed response to Britain's economic malaise. But a year from now this giant sandpit will be a world-class piece of infrastructure handling the world's largest cargo ships – and the government is desperate for similar projects to transform the UK's economic landscape.
It will also elicit twinges of jealousy from the aviation lobby, as well as Nick Clegg, who called last week for an infrastructure boom. If backers of a Thames estuary airport want to see what they are missing, they should visit the proposed site of "Boris Island" on the northern shores of Kent and look across the water. While the London mayor, business leaders and environmentalists debate the merits of building four runways on the Hoo peninsula, London Gateway is taking shape a few miles away on the south coast of Essex.
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