PLANS for a four-runway airport to be built on the Isle of Sheppey at a cost of £6.6 billion have been submitted to the Secretary of State for transport as an alternative to Cliffe Airport.

The proposals come from the Sheppey Airport company. They share the same Medway City Estate address in Rochester as a well-known firm of surveyors, Michael Parkes Surveyors Ltd. Sheppey Airport Ltd says it was formed to promote the plan, and employed an international engineering company to advise on its proposals.

The airport could handle at least one flight a minute every day of the year from 2009 two years ahead of Cliffe. By 2020 it would have three runways. A fourth could be added 10 years later, say the promoters of Sheppey Airport.

It would be best of all the options so far proposed because fewer people would be affected by noise, and would only cost 1,000 hectares of marginal agricultural land. This is half the loss at Cliffe. The maximum number of people affected by noise of "significant community annoyance" would be 6,000. In return, say the promoters, the airport would create jobs. "Reductions in the current high rates of unemployment and out-commuting from this area have already been identified by local authorities as desirable outcomes," they said.

"The forecast housing growth in the Thames Gateway region suggests that the unemployment needs of an airport constructed in either of these two locations could be met with relatively limited additional housing development."

"A new airport at either Sheppey or Cliffe would generate new economic development in that part of the South East most in need of regeneration, the Thames Gateway, which is recognised as being a regional and national priority for regeneration.

"These two airport options both offer better compliance with regional planning guidelines than either Heathrow or Stansted."