Gwent airport could replace Cardiff and Bristol’s - report (From Free Press Series)

Gwent airport could replace Cardiff and Bristol’s - report

4:10pm Friday 15th March 2013 in News

THE WELSH Government should press ahead with buying Cardiff airport, but only as a stop gap before a new Severnside Airport between Newport and Chepstow is built - a report has recommended.

The report based on a study conducted by aviation consultants MSP Solutions on behalf of the Institute of Welsh Affairs, says that: “Wales and the West of England should cooperate to promote a state of the art, 24-hour Severnside passenger and cargo airport that would serve the whole of south west Britain."

It suggests that this would provide a long-term plan to replace both Cardiff and Bristol airports.

The report states that the airport would take at nearly 10 years to build, but cited benefits including its proximity to the newly electrified rail line and motorway.

It says such an airport would provide Wales and the West of England with a better service than anything that could be developed separately at Bristol and Cardiff, with the potential to attract "10-11 million passengers a year from the start.

The proposal will now be submitted to the UK Government’s Airports Commission.

John Osmond, Director of the IWA said: "If we are to turn the Welsh economy round this is the kind of big scale, long-term thinking that we need."