Richard's blog

If you only go to one protest on the 25th of February, come to the Central Hall rally against the third runway: two days before the consultation ends.

There will be speakers and the usual sort of stuff, but frankly, that's not as important as your being there. This is the last chance to show the Government the strength of opposition to the expansion plans before the end of the consultation, so get up off the sofa and attend. Monday the 25th of February, 7pm, Central Hall, Westminster.

Oh, and I promise not to sneak off if it starts raining (mostly because the rally's inside).

What is a "periodic emissions cost assessment"? Can you eat "net present value terms"? Is "mixed mode operations" something to do with surgery? And just how much are the "external climate change costs"? Welcome to the Heathrow consultation - a toxic blend of civil servant speak and political mumbo-jumbo so bad that the Plain English Campaign ("fighting for crystal-clear communication since 1979") has called for it to be withdrawn and made clearer.

"This document effectively takes away human rights," said founder Chrissie Maher. "No ordinary person with an interest in the plans to expand Heathrow could be expected to read and understand this."

"How can this be a true consultation if most readers cannot understand the document? We've seen this time and time again - local councils and Government departments are always launching consultations'. But they are not real consultations because they design them in such a way that most people are unable to take part."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves...

Defra has relased a 'framework for pro-environmental behaviours', and rather surprisingly "avoid[ing] unnecessary short haul flights" is third on the list. Surprisingly only because their colleagues in the Department for Transport are busy making it easier for people to fly short-haul, by trying to build a new short-haul runway at Heathrow.

The DfT would do well to read the 'framework' - it says that "Government needs to lead by example, and to be more visible" on climate change, and "be more prepared to intervene up-stream and 'choice edit' in order to remove the most unsustainable products and services from the market place". For those who don't speak civil service, the report translates: "the Government’s support for targeted airport expansion has been perceived by some people to contradict with evidence on the climate change impacts of increased flying."

Now why on earth would anybody think that?

...it would probably be the most useless airport in the world. When it's not masquerading as a mid-90s rave venue, Lydd serves 5,000 passengers a year - but wants to expand to 500,000.

There's just two obstacles in the way of the airport's meglomania - Dungeness nuclear power station and Dungeness RSPB sactuary - both of which are objecting to any increase in air passengers. The RSPB reserve is concerned about the bird population being disturbed by low-flying aircraft; the power station about the Kent population getting covered in toxic waste should a pilot veer off course.

In the 1960s the Roskill commission was tasked with producing a report into the best location for the third London airport. Its findings were reached though cost-benefit analysis, assigning an arbitary economic value to the unquantifiable. The report famously valued a Norman church at just £50,000 (the cost of its fire insurance).

As contermporary detractors noted, reports based on cost-benefit analysis carry the predjudices of their authors - and Roskill was no exception. The greatest weight was given to convenience of passengers, calculated by applying a per-minute value for any reduction in journey times to the combined number of minutes saved by the total number of passengers who might use the airport over a ten or twenty year period! Saving just one second per passenger would add up when aggregated over a decade or two - even if that second was saved by drastically increasing noise and pollution.

Outspoken British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh has had his knuckles rapped for claiming that the third runway would reduce CO2 emissions.

The day after the consultation, Willie wrote to tens of thousands of members of BA's executive club, claiming that the third runway would save 330,000 tonnes of CO2 as less planes would need to stack in the skies above London, and urging them to write in support of expansion.

The Advertising Standards Agency wrote to Walsh, pointing out that the third runway would actually see 2.6 million tonnes more CO2, from the 220,000 extra flights each year, and ordered him to write a correction. Walsh has so far refused to say whether he will comply.

The 2M Group - local authorities under the Heathrow flight path - have compiled a list of 20 questions for Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, about the third runway.

Have you assessed the climate change impact of the extra 3 million tonnes per annum of CO2 admissions produced by the third runway alone?

You can almost hear Freddie humming along to this one - hot on the heels of BMI's ditching their Leeds-Bradford to Heathrow and Durham Tees Valley to Heathrow comes the news that they're also dropping their Inverness to Heathrow route.

Despite protestations from local Lib-Dem MP Danny Alexander ("disgraceful") it seems there's a perfectly good reason for their abandoning the service - no one was using it. According to Peter Spencer, BMI managing director, "there has been insufficient demand to operate a viable profitable operation on this route".

Apparently the combination of rising fuel costs and landing charges at Heathrow is causing these under-used routes to drop like flies. Could this be the first sign of the invisible hand clamping down on the 'cheap' flights bubble?