The maddest yet? You pay to slice top off mountain!
IT WAS labelled the ‘worst foreign aid project in living memory’: a £300million airport funded by British taxpayers – where planes couldn’t land.
Now, in a bid to solve the problem of wildly fluctuating winds at the clifftop airfield on the tiny island of St Helena, desperate officials plan to blow the top off a mountain to make the airport safer.
The drastic move is one option being discussed to counter wind shear – vicious changes in wind speed and direction – at the airport on the British territory in the South Atlantic.
Prince Edward was due to open the airport earlier this year, but it was delayed after test flights raised safety concerns.
Authorities had hoped the problem could be fixed quickly, but engineers are now understood to be considering blowing up King and Queen Rock, a peak on the side of the northern approach to the runway, to reduce the danger risk. This would take months and involve moving thousands of tons of rock.
Last night the Department for International Development (DFID) said it had appointed an internal expert to review the project, though it refused to confirm or deny whether dynamiting was a viable option. The Mail on Sunday can also reveal that politicians in the UK have demanded an inquiry into the farce after a leaked email revealed a Foreign Office official admitting that continuing delays mean commercial flights will not land at St Helena before August 2017 – costing taxpayers at least £2.5million extra.
The delay will force DFID to pay Comair, a British Airways subsidiary that won a contract to provide flights to the island, up to £1.9million a year to cover its loss of revenue. The island’s government has said continuing to run the island’s supply ship, RMS St Helena, over the period could cost at least £625,000.
Last night, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, an ex-DFID Minister who previously branded the scheme ‘the worst foreign aid project in living memory’, said: ‘The whole project is a real embarrassment and I have written to the chairman of the International Development Committee to demand an inquiry. The committee should discuss compensation for people who have put money into commercial interests tied to the airport.’