expansion

The camp, the bling and a cat called Andrew

By Anna on 22/03/2010
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Last week, without any fanfare or proper consultation Southend-on-sea declared that they would be expanding their airport. Southend is an hour up the line from London. It used to be the East End's top holiday destination, but like so many British seaside towns it's lost out to cheap flights, and the fall of tourism has left it with an interesting growth industry: determined resistance to the ravages of its clueless council. For a flavour of what might be in wait for the airport, here is the story of a cat, a king, and a camp called Bling...

Some years ago in Southend preparations for a road widening scheme uncovered an internationally significant archaeological site: a Saxon King's burial ground. The council decided to raid the treasure and continue with the tarmac. In outraged tribute to their forbears' desecrated goldie looking chains, the locals decided to set up Camp Bling. For 4 years they occupied the land and mounted an incredibly inspiring grassroots campaign, that saw treehouses go up and 100 residents storm a private council awards ceremony.

Eventually the council backed down, and last summer an agreement was made to limit the road widening to a token gesture of 20 metres. The site carefully packed away their defences. Then a couple of months ago the council explained that, while they wouldn't be taking the burial site, they would be going back on their word and expanding 160 metres of road. So camp was set up again, at Cuckoo Corner. Lads who had been too young to be involved in Bling sat up the beautiful beech that was threatened.

For the last three weeks people have occupied the space 24/7, holding off the chainsaws and building a small but sturdy activist centre. On the three Saturday nights before possible eviction, dozens of locals lined the road in readiness. But then the council decided to make a vicious twist with their possession order for the land- just two days before the stated court date, they posted up a hit list of 12 people who they demanded should appeared in conjunction with the case.

Many of the people summoned to court had never even stayed on the site, and one of them, well, one of them was a cat (who had featured in newspaper articles about camp Bling). But it seems that a spot of brazen incompetence doesn't immediately stop Southend council getting their way, and the judge demanded that everyone who showed up to the court case pay costs for the privilege of doing so, and threatened them with contempt of court (and the resulting loss of their assets) if they decided to protest against the tree felling.

On Saturday, just one day after Whitehall gave the final rubber stamp to airport expansion, the bailiffs came in early with fencing, security guards, cutting crew and cranes. Within a few hours the mature trees that had graced the area for over a century were decimated. 50-100 residents gathered in spontaneous protest despite the council's bullying. One man made a bid to lock onto the extraction vehicles but was pulled off.

Camp Bling and Camp Cuckoo have always been clear that their stand was about more than trees and history, however important they know both to be. Ten years after the council tried to pointlessly widen a road, half a dozen trees have been lost from a project that proposed to take out well over a hundred. And many hundreds of people have seen that resistance is fertile, that stupid decisions can be fought, and that land can be won back.

Grimshaws targetted for involvement in Heathrow third runway

By Anna on 08/02/2010
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Grimshaws, the architects firm which portrays itself as greener than green, the people who designed the Eden Project, were appointed late last year as architects for the third runway at Heathrow. No wonder three young men blacked-out their glass-fronted offices on Clerkenwell Road with tar.

Grimshaws thought the most sensible thing to do on the one year anniversary of the Government giving the go-ahead to the third runway was to have a high-level meeting with BAA. Imagine their surprise when they found their six-metre plate glass windows entirely blacked out. Not an auspicious start.

If Grimshaws thought this was just another job, then they've bitten off more than they can chew. The suave, award-winning Sir Nicholas Grimshaw has seriously underestimated the determination of thousands of people to stop the third runway ever being built. Actions like this are going to become common place as people recognise that our Government is not doing enough and start taking action themselves.

But this is not just a message to Grimshaws. It is to any firm that bids for work on the third runway. Heathrow's expansion is a poisoned chalice. Just leave it alone.

P.s. the image above is, of course, a cleverly constructed metaphor. See the tar pit. See the elephant, which is representing Grimshaws. See it struggling in the tar. There's an astute political message in there somewhere.

German airports get expansion fever

By Rosie on 03/02/2010
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German anti-aviation campaigners have been contending with huge regional airport expansion plans. Airport managers hope to stimulate demand by expanding rather than catering to a demand that already exists, excitedly talking up weekend shopping trips to London amongst other equally essential flights.

Construction is already under way at Kassel Calden regional airport, which is going to expand into a commercial airport with the help of massive subsidies of €150 million. Residents, neighbouring municipalities and BUND launched a legal challenge, but their case was dismissed in April last year and a massive forest was cleared last month.

True to style, it wasn’t left at that and campaigners now have to contend with the attempted destruction of the Querumer Forest to lengthen the runway at Braunschweig airport. A spokesperson for the group, Peter Illert said "This airport doesn't serve public interests, it is used by managers of the nearby Volkswagen AG headquarters in Wolfsburg."

Supporting the attempted expansion on such a beautiful natural site is a strange move by Volkswagen, who have been working hard on their greenwash by a sustained campaign of tree planting. Angry at the injustice, climate activists and local groups have set up a vigil camp in the endangered area, similar to one that sprung up near Frankfurt this time last year.

Illert went on to say, "Nowadays, the north of Hessia is a poor country, and gets still poorer - of money and of quality of life - when a new airport is erected for a small number of businessmen and ambitious local politicians for charter traffic and medium distance flights."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves!

Glasgow airport pushes expansion while passenger numbers fall off a cliff

By Anonymous on 07/01/2010
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Source: Flickr

Glasgow Airport is determined to pump more carbon into the atmosphere despite a massive drop in passenger demand. Well it’s no big news that the aviation industry does not require consumer demand to expand. Inspired by the predict and provide of the 1990’s road building which brought us a motorway through the centre of Glasgow, the industry is dedicated to creating demand with cheap flights - whether we want them or not.

Nevertheless, it's amazing that managing director Amanda McMillan just announced plans to invest £25 million 'improving' that airport because it lost one-in-eight passengers over the past year. Fly Globespan and Zoom Airline collapsed and most RyanAir flights moved to Edinburgh. Given that part of the airport was closed over winter due to lack of demand, why are they so dead set on expanding?

Technically, of course, they're not expanding; the airport is being "enhanced". In the Scottish National Planning Framework the word "expansion" was changed to allow airports to expand more easily. This means BAA can up the possible passenger numbers without going through any of a legitimate, democratic planning process.

Following the Copenhagen climate conference and a sparkling new Scottish Climate Change Bill, it would make sense to allow passenger numbers to drop naturally whilst driving for a high speed rail link. However, that wouldn't make BAA any money, so unsurpsingly it's not on the cards. Instead, they're dedicated to generating new and unsustainable demand. It's like the collapse of the passenger numbers which followed the recession has taught them nothing.

On top of this BAA Glasgow are also very pleased to announce that they are contributing £1 million towards the famed M74 extension. Not only are they creating excessive noise in Glasgow’s poorer neighbourhoods by flying jets metres above their heads, but also by helping build a motorway through the middle of the city. I wonder if they'll be putting thaton the 'community matters' section of their website. Thought not.

More Government cover-up over Heathrow impacts

By Richard on 30/11/2009
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Source: Flickr

Another Sunday Times splash: those naughty officials at DfT spent 16 months trying to stop Justine Greening, MP for Putney, seeing information about the third runway. This includes emails which pointed out that "some consultees may ... claim collusion" between the Department for Transport and BAA.

Not only did they do everything to delay releasing documents, but they doctored reports to remove references to technical documents so that campaigners wouldn't know they existed. According to the Sunday Times, a memo from the senior strategy manager on Heathrow at BAA explicitly asks for a reference to BAA technical notes to be removed. It then adds: "He has avoided all references to the TNs [technical notes] in the surface access report and suggests, which I would agree with, that if [name redacted] can change his reference it could minimise the opportunity for a request for access to any or all of the TNs."

The emails show that the Government beefed up a consultation of businesses in the South East to make its case. Just 2.6% of the 6,000 businesses consulted bothered to reply, but the DfT still claimed that 90% of businesses relied on expansion, even though it was obvious that only those with a vested interest in the third runway had bothered to respond.

Nothing the Government did when making the case for expansion was above board. Civil servants and BAA sat down and openly conspired together to try and get the runway built. They moved the NOx meters further from the source of emissions to play down the levels of pollution. They invented magic planes which made no noise and emitted next to nothing (and which no engineer in their right mind would trust to get off the ground in one piece).

These reports are a damning paper trail of the lengths the Government would go to sell for communities around Heathrow down the river. It's time for heads to fall, but the Government will doubtless stand by Sir Humphrey and chums. That's no surprise: there's been a revolving door between Labour and the aviation industry since they first sniffed victory back in 1997. Plus ca change, etc.

Eden Project architects catch third runway pox

By Anonymous on 16/11/2009
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Source: Flickr

Following last week's hi-jinx at the architecture awards, the bored-and-ill-informed climate change deniers at Building Design magazine decided to find out if we'd targeted the right people when we tried to give Pascal & Watson their 'We Don't Give a Shit' award for going for the Heathrow contract.

Pascal & Watson have done plenty of airport expansion in the past so we're confident that they deserve the award, but they lost out on the Heathrow contract to Grimshaw. Grimshaw, who never tire of telling everyone that they designed the Eden Project, are a founder member of the UK Green Building Council. The UK's most controversial high-carbon development is a curious direction for them to start moving in.

Intimate relations with BAA are never a wise PR move for any brand, but Grimshaw seems particularly ill equipped to enter the third runway warzone. Sir Nicholas Grimshaw - inventor of EVA ("Environmentally Viable Architecture") goes around saying things like: "We've been trying to define our ideals in our practice recently, and one of things that came out was that we would very strongly rather work with people we liked! Empathy with the people we were designing for was a critical issue, and although you could make a lot of money working for bastards, there's no real joy in it."

The UK Green Building Council has defended Grimshaw, saying, "...we need to direct our anger at the policymakers involved. Where does this stop? Should we be protesting against the people that pour the concrete for coal-fired power stations?". Hmm. If you expect us to applaud architects for doing sustainable architecture then why can't we attack them for doing unsustainable architecture? Swings and bloody roundabouts.

In Memoriam Grimshaw Sustainable Architects
So. Farewell then Grimshaw sustainable architects.
Your bedfellow has violated you.
Now, infected, simply:
Grimshaw, architects.

The Award Ceremony Crashers 2: this time it's architecture

By Richard on 09/11/2009
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Last time they crashed the PR Week awards, and were thrown out. This time, it's the Architects Awards... where they gave out a prize.

Heathrow campaigners storm Architect Awards to warn off third runway bids

By Richard on 06/11/2009
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Source: Flickr

Plane Stupid activists along with three residents from Heathrow have targeted one of the potential third runway designers at this year’s Architects of the Year Awards held at London's Intercontinental Hotel. Architect group Pascall and Watson, nominated for Transport Architect of the Year, have been at the forefront of airport expansion since the early 1960's.

The activists stormed the podium and gave a short speech before offering Pascall and Watson the ‘We don't give a Shit’ award in recognition of their 50 year aviation portfolio which includes expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester, Dublin and Abu Dhabi airports.

Other activists handed out leaflets to the audience. Once the award had been presented the activists left of their own accord.

Tracy Howard, 35 year old mother of two and barmaid at the King William IV pub in Sipson - which will be destroyed if a third runway is allowed to go ahead - said:

"We're here today to let the architecture world know about the diverse and growing movement against the third runway and airport expansion across the country. Those involved with airport expansion will have to include this growing opposition in their designs and in their budget".

Joe Ryle, 18, Plane Stupid activist and Heathrow resident said:

"Architects bidding for the third runway contract, or any other new runway, can expect to see a lot more of us. We presented them with the 'We don't give a Shit' award both to recognise their contribution to destroying our homes and to say that trying to build a green airport is like trying to polish a turd."

Heathrow expansion not great value after all

By Richard on 18/09/2009
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Source: Flickr

One of the best things about being a monetising economist is getting to pretend that ideology has nothing to do with anything. Monetisers, for those of us lucky enough not to have to deal with them, are tasked with asigning a value to something which has no obvious price. Cheese, for instance, has a value: a block of it might be worth one pound, or two pound, or eight pound if bought from a fromagerie in Knightsbridge. But community? Or a quiet park in the city? Or time? What are they worth?

To answer that, you turn to a monetiser, who will weigh everything up and then find a way of pricing it cheap enough that some developers will still get to pave all over it and erect a car park. That 10th C Norman church? £10,000 to you squire. The cost of climate change? Too cheap to prevent the sort of behaviour which might prevent it happening.

But a concerted effort by those greenies at DECC has revised the value of carbon, increasing it as time goes on. A tonne of CO2 now isn't worth much - about the price of a night out in Soho - but by 2050 it's risen to the cost of a Fiat Panda, because a tonne emitted in 2050 is more likely to put us over our carbon limit and require another cut somewhere else. DECC's revision has made the value of carbon equivalent to the cost of achieving that extra reduction. Emit CO2 now or in 2050 and you'd pay for someone else to reduce their footprint to make up for it.

So far, so gravy. But then those clever boffins at the Liberal Democrats ran the cost of carbon through the Heathrow calculations. They discovered that the marked increase in the cost of carbon basically wiped out any economic benefits accrued from the third runway. In earlier versions the cost of the 181m tonnes of carbon dioxide the runway would emit between now and 2080 was £4.8b. Now it had risen to £9.3bn to 2080, wiping out the £5b benefits.

What does the Government think? Not much sadly: according to a recent PQ they haven't had a chance to look at the new benefit-cost ratio, but are pretty convinced that it will still be robust. Nothing to see here then, time to move along.

Heathrow and Stansted expansion even less likely as BAA posts record losses

By Richard on 29/07/2009
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Have you been wondering why BAA has gone quiet on its plans to expand Heathrow and Stansted? Just a few months ago it was keen to stress that both airports would have new runways as soon as the tarmac could be poured, but their latest financial reports shows that BAA is so broke that it is reusing teabags* in the staff canteen.

So far this year BAA has lost over half a billion pounds from the three London airports, with passengers down by 4 million. The biggest decline was at Stansted, which lost 14% of passengers. Domestic flights fell 10% across the airports, with flights to the EU down 8% and international flights down 6%. So what need for the new runway - or for the increase in passenger numbers they twisted arms for last year?

In other BAA news, Gatwick still hasn't sold. BAA wants £1.5 billion, down from £2 billion last year, and has challenged the Competition Commission's demand that it sell Stansted, Gatwick and either Edinburgh or Glasgow within two years. There's some complicated leveraging thing going on with bonds and stuff, but basically it's overvalued the airport and can't sell it.

No cash means no expansion, whatever spin BAA chooses to put on it: bulldozing villages doesn't come cheap, especially when we're digging in to resist. It's perhaps a little too early to start celebrating, but let's face it: we've won**, even if the other side hasn't conceded defeat just yet.

* I am reliabily informed that reusing teabags is a perfectly sensible thing to do. However the image of BAA's staff fighting over a second-hand Tetley while outside the offices hordes of angry residents and anti-expansion campaigners wave placards and chant slogans is so heartening that I thought I'd share it with you.

** Given that I've started doing these little notes, I may as well continue: there plenty of regional airport battles to fight and win, but passengers and profits are down across the sector. Perhaps that iconic symbol of the fight against climate change won't be in Sipson and Harmonsworth, but at Newquay, Doncaster or Birmingham airports instead...