British nature experts have hailed the decision last week to drop plans for an airport in a “wildlife hotspot” which is home to tens of thousands of birds each winter.

The move by the UK government-appointed Airports Commission to reject the ‘Boris Island’ Thames Estuary airport plan, which would have seen development in internationally protected wetlands, was welcomed as “common sense” by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

London Mayor Boris Johnson had championed the rejected scheme. Photo: Philip Toscano/PA

But London Mayor Boris Johnson, the scheme’s main supporter, reacted with fury, saying: “In one myopic stroke the commission has set the debate back by half a century and consigned their work to the long list of vertically filed reports on aviation expansion that are gathering dust on a shelf in Whitehall.”

The thumbs-down for the four-runway estuary scheme leaves the commission, headed by Sir Howard Davies, with three shortlisted schemes: two involving expansion at Heathrow Airport in west London and the other for a new runway at Gatwick in West Sussex.

The commission said the planned airport would have seen substantial loss to the Thames Estuary and Marshes special protected area (SPA), which is protected under EU law, and Ramsar wetland site, which is covered by international convention.

Up to 45 per cent of the SPA, which hosts more than 75,000 protected birds in winter, and as much as 39 per cent of the Ramsar site could have been destroyed, hitting the Natura 2000 network of protected areas, the commission said.

Under EU laws, the airport could only go ahead if there were no feasible alternatives and it was absolutely necessary, while measures to replace the habitat elsewhere would be needed on an “unprecedented” scale.

The commission is due to make its final report to ministers in summer 2015 – after Britain’s general election.

Sir Howard told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “We think it’s [the estuary scheme] too risky. The logistical challenges of shifting an airport 17 miles across London are immense.

“The surface access requirements to it are very complicated and we simply think that there’s a strong chance that you would never actually get it built.”

Government conservation agency Natural England had warned: “Compensation for impacts to seabirds and sub-tidal habitats has never been delivered and should be treated as ‘extremely challenging (at best) but more likely impossible to deliver’.”

According to the RSPB, 12 species of birds are found in internationally important numbers in the Thames Estuary – the highest concentration in southeast England.

Its diversity of waterbird species puts it in the top five internationally important sites in the UK, out of 143 areas, and it is important for species including knot, brent goose and ringed plover and dunlin.

More than a quarter (28 per cent) of the British avocet population is estimated to regularly use the Thames Estuary and Marshes SPA.

The RSPB said that there was nowhere else in the Thames Estuary “or arguably in Europe” where the large-scale damage that the proposed airport would cause could be compensated for adequately.

Mike Clarke, RSPB chief executive, said: “We have always said that the Thames Estuary is a disastrous place to put an airport. It supports many thousands of wintering birds and other wildlife.

“I sincerely hope that the announcement draws a line under any more similar proposals.

“The communities along the estuary have been fighting plans for airports here for many years and none of them have taken into account the vital importance this area holds for many threatened species.”

Friends of the Earth campaigner Jenny Bates said: “If Boris Island had got the go ahead, it would have caused huge damage to wildlife in a richly populated conservation area, not to mention the disruption, and air and noise pollution for those who live in the area.

“The overall business case for further expansion of our airports is just not convincing, as it is not compatible with meeting our climate change targets.”

In 2009, the Labour administration had given the go ahead for a new runway at Heathrow – an idea that was thrown out when the coalition government came to power in 2010.

Later, the need for airport expansion was recognised in the setting up of the Airports Commission.

Remaining options for London growth

• Gatwick Airport: The commission’s analysis will be based on a new runway more than 3,000 metres in length, spaced sufficiently south of the existing runway to permit fully independent operation.

• A new 3,500-metre runway constructed to the northwest of the existing airport proposed by Heathrow Airport Ltd.

• An extension of the existing northern runway to the west of Heathrow proposed by Heathrow Hub Ltd, a consortium including former Concorde pilot Jock Lowe. This scheme would see the runway lengthened to at least 6,000 metres, enabling it to be operated as two separate runways: one for departures and one for arrivals.