Lohja eager to offer replacement for Helsinki-Malmi Airport

The town of Lohja, to the west of Helsinki, announced on Tuesday that it would be willing to offer a new location for the present Helsinki-Malmi Airport.
      According to Mayor Elina Lehto-Hägroth, the Lohja town board made an unanimous decision on the matter.
      Lohja also released a report on Tuesday, proposing that the location of the airport could be either Teutari on the border with Inkoo or the Nummenkylä region close to the border with Vihti.
      According to Lehto-Häggroth, one of the assets of Lohja is its location near Helsinki. It takes only about one hour to drive from the centre of the capital to Lohja.
     
”Public opinion in Lohja is both for and against. Some criticism is likely to be expressed about the inconvenience relating to noise and traffic”, Lehto-Häggroth noted.
      Juhani Tervala, the Director-General of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, did not wish to evaluate on Tuesday whether or not the proposal is realistic.
      ”This indicates that an airport would be a significant job provider for a municipality”, Tervala commented.
      At present, the state is investigating the question of whether or not to move the airport’s activities somewhere else. A report is due in 2-3 years.
      Reportedly, upgrading the Helsinki-Malmi Airport would cost an estimated EUR 170 million, while a new airport could be set up elsewhere for much less.
     
One obvious consideration for the City of Helsinki is that the airfield site as a whole represents a tempting plot of land relatively close to the centre of the capital. After all, Helsinki has a chronic shortage of real estate plots for residential development, while land and property prices are astronomical.
     
Another location for the Malmi Airport could be Backas in Porvoo, about 50 kilometres from the centre of Helsinki.
      A report published by the Ministry of Transport and Communications last autumn found that the Backas area in Porvoo would be the most appropriate location for a new airport.
      However, the Porvoo City Council has opposed the idea.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Friends of Malmi Airport celebrate 70th birthday of Helsinki’s first airport in bittersweet atmosphere (16.5.2008)
  Proposal for new airport in Porvoo to replace Malmi facility (17.8.2007)
  Helsinki to evict planes from Malmi Airport (9.12.2004)

Links:
  Finavia: Helsinki-Malmi Airport
  Friends of Malmi Airport press release (16.8.2007): Malmi Airport could remain in its present shape