expansion

Sipson photographer harrased under Terrorism Act

By Linda on 20/04/2009
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Have you ever been so angry that you can't speak properly? That happened to me last week when I discovered that, once again, the Police were harassing people coming to support us in our fight against BAA’s efforts to bulldoze Sipson and parts of Harmondsworth to build a third runway.

Brett, an American student studying for his Masters has been in Sipson for the past month or so, photographing residents whose homes are under threat. We like having him around, but the police don’t, and have regularly stopped and searched him. We don’t understand why, but they’ve been have using section 44 of the Terrorism Act because he is photographing “near Heathrow airport”.

Look on the map. Most of the village is a good mile from the airport, and hundreds of us take photos here every week. Last week he was stopped for taking pictures outside the King William IV pub. Local people like myself were outraged.

People came out of the pub and started photographing the police (four of them in a van) on their mobiles, at which point the police said they would arrest them too. I’d like to see them try! In Sipson activists and residents are determined to stand shoulder to shoulder against this invasion of our community.

Heathrow legal challenge launched

By Richard on 08/04/2009
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The first legal challenge to Heathrow's third runway has been launched: a coalition of thirteen groups, including local councils and NGOs, has brought a judicial review of the consultation process. If successful the Government would have to scrap its blatantly fraudulent consultation and start the whole process again.

Calling in the lawyers is so commonplace now that I can't help but wonder why the Government keeps getting caught by them. It was only a couple of years ago that they got stung by Greenpeace over the consultation on nuclear power, in which they were held to have prejudiced the outcome by announcing in advance that they wanted new nukes all over the country.

So how did they launch this consultation? By colluding with BAA to rig all the data, to make it look as though Heathrow could expand within strict "local environmental limits", and by announcing at every opportunity that they were "minded" to expand, but needed to ask us exactly how they should do it. I'm looking forward to hearing from DfT's legal beagles as to how being "minded" does not mean "building it whether you like it or not".

It's clear from the outcome that the Government wanted to build the third runway. The only consultation we had was on the immensely technical (and rigged) analysis of the environmental and traffic modelling - there was no question that the runway was getting the go-ahead. It was, as Swift put it more elegantly than I, not a question of whether we should be eating the baby, but rather, whether it would taste better boiled or fried.

Plane Stupid launches Adopt a Resident campaign

By Richard on 31/03/2009
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Environmental activists from across the UK have 'adopted' Heathrow residents to support them in their fight against a third runway and prepare them to defend their homes in the event of BAA being given permission to build the runway. The activists were brought together by Plane Stupid. Over tea and cakes in St Mary’s Church Hall in Harmondsworth on Monday 30th March 40 residents were adopted.

Local resident Lynne Davies said, “We are very excited about this scheme. Many local people are feeling very vulnerable with the threat of a third runway hanging over them. They will appreciate this support. And it shows our determination to stay put. We don’t believe the new runway will ever be built but this link up with the young activists sends a clear signal to the Government and BAA that we are not alone.”

Heathrow planning permission delayed until 2012

By Richard on 27/03/2009
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BAA have announced that plans to build a third runway at Heathrow cannot be submitted for planning permission until 2012, after the next election. If we trust the Conservatives (and that's a big if), then the runway won't get built. Cameron and his transport supremo Theresa Villiers have been very, very clear that they would change the Government's planning framework to reject expansion at Heathrow. They're currently leagues ahead of Labour in the polls.

This is the second airport expansion BAA delayed this year: back in February they announced that Stansted would be delayed until 2017 - effectively taking their plans off the table. It must be embarassing for Labour, who spent most of last year rushing through the consultation so that the runway could be brought in during their time in office. Or did Labour's fiddling of figures in the consultation cause the delay?

After weeks of media exposure, no one could possibly think that the consultation was solid enough to last through a public inquiry. Had BAA pushed ahead as planned then every consultant from here to Oxbridge would have been queueing up to have a go at their magic planes and disapearing NOx levels. It would have been open season, and topped off by a new Government waltzing in and scrapping both expansions. Faced with the prostpect of egg all over their faces, is it any wonder they backed off a bit?

Scottish blockaders up in court

By Mark H on 04/03/2009
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The nine protestors who were arrested at Aberdeen airport on Tuesday morning have spent the night at Inverurie police station and appeared at Aberdeen sheriff's court this morning. They were protesting against the short-sighted, illogical, unnecessary and environmentally damaging expansion of Aberdeen airport and other airport sites across the country.

The nine were in good spirits despite spending several hours sitting in the cold at the airport, followed by a night in the cells. They should be proud of themselves: despite media reports to the contrary (and some initial confusion at our end), when asked to pack up by the police because an air ambulance needed to take off they did so and handed themselves in. The managing director of the airport confirmed that the protest "wasn't a significant delay" to the ambulance.

No one has the right to call these young men and women dangerous or irresponsible. If our elected officials had their moral courage then perhaps we wouldn't be headed towards a climate crisis with heads collectively buried in the sand. When they get out of police custody they should all be given a hearty great metaphorical pat on the back. Unless, of course, you see them in person; then they deserve a great big warm hug. Big up, one and all.

Plane Stupid Southampton: why we did it

By Richard on 03/03/2009
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This morning seven people from Plane Stupid Southampton were charged after setting up a climate refugee camp across the entrance to Southampton airport. Pete Barker, one of those arrested, describes why he felt compelled to take direct action to stop climate change:

Once again I’m sat on the train to Southampton with my heart pounding, this time its for my first ever court appearance, but two weeks ago we were here steeling ourselves for direct action at the airport. We wanted to wake people up to the kind of things we can expect from climate change and challenge BAA, the owners of Southampton airport, to do something for the victims.We had even set them on the way by formally submitting a planning application for a Change of Use.

Peter Mandelson: Yachtgate 2.0

By Richard on 02/03/2009
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mandelson

I've been following the convoluted story of Heathrow's third runway for several years now, and thought I'd got my head around the layers of corruption. But this weekend's Daily Mail has blown all my expectations out of the water, blending several layers of intrigue and dodgy dealings into an already overblown saga.

Turns out twice-disgraced meddler Peter Mandelson was arranging meetings between BAA's spin doctor Roland Rudd and Government Ministers - including Transport Minister Lord Adonis - at least five times in ten days in the run up to the Heathrow decision.

Those meetings:

  • October 17 last year: Lord Mandelson holds meeting with Roland Rudd, whose PR firm Finsbury represents airport operator BAA.
  • December 4: Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon postpones decision on building third runway at Heathrow until January.
  • December 8: Rudd, representing Business for New Europe, and Business Minister Shriti Vadera attend the Global Europe Business Summit.
  • December 10: Rudd attends breakfast meeting with Lord Mandelson.
  • December 12: Representative of Finsbury meets Transport Minister Lord Adonis.
  • December 16: Representative of Finsbury meets Lord Adonis again.
  • December 17: Rudd attends a second breakfast meeting with Lord Mandelson.

Now I'm sure that at no point did Mandelson, Rudd or Adonis discuss anything to do with Heathrow's third runway. After all, it's not like BAA offered out of the blue to pay £230 million towards Crossrail - effectively rescuing the project from disaster - just two weeks after Mandleson and Rudd first met...

Stansted expansion challenged in High Court

By Richard on 26/02/2009
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SSE at the High Court

Further problems for BAA at Stansted; just as it tries to cope with falling profits and passengers. A coalition of airlines, including Ryanair ("idiot bloggers") and easyJet, have written to Ministers seeking a one-year postponement of the second runway inquiry. Now Stop Stansted Expansion has launched a High Court challenge to last summer's decision to increase flights. If they're successful BAA will be right back where it started, but several million pounds worse off.

The thrust of their argument is absurdly simple: the inspector was wrong to ignore the climate change, economic and noise impacts of the airport. During the Air Transport White Paper consultation the Government justified airport expansion because individual plans would get scrutinised at public inquiries. This meant that the Government could ignore the impacts of expansion, but also that the inspector should have taken account of those impacts when he reached his decision. He didn't; ergo the High Court challenge.

The High Court hearing ends today, with a decision expected a few weeks after. It's pretty clear to me that they have a great case, but then judges have a funny tendency of disagreeing with me. Either way there will be huge ramifications for airport campaigners and airport operators: if SSE are successful then inspectors wouldn't be able to defer CO2 discussions to the Government any more. Fingers crossed the judge sees sense, not pound signs.

Is BAA about to give up on Stansted expansion?

By Richard on 23/02/2009
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Stansted

Strange things are afoot in Essex. Last week BAA announced that the proposed second runway at Stansted wouldn't be operational until 2017 because of falling demand; this week it's thrown up its hands and agreed not to challenge Stansted's forced sale.

This is a big news. At pre-inquiry meetings BAA's lawyers refused to put the public inquiry on hold until the sale had taken place. They were adamant that the new owners would want a second runway. But there's no evidence that this is the case: passenger numbers are in freefall, and BAA would charge a premium for obtaining planning permission. This is fine in an economic boom, but we're in recession; buyers are after a fire sale, not bells and whistles.

It's not just buyers hit by the credit crunch: Ferrovial is struggling to pay its debts and Basque sepratists ETA have launched a bombing campaign to stop it building a new high-speed rail line. Ferrovial and BAA need to raise money quickly, and if no one will pay extra for permission to expand, why push ahead with a costly and protracted public inquiry? It's too early to predict, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that BAA had issued a sheepish retraction and quietly sidelined its grandiose expansion plans.

Cold-hearted cops arrest grandfather for writing in the snow

By Richard on 18/02/2009
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snow plane

A retired oil refinery worker turned airport campaigner thought he'd take advantage of the recent snowfall to send a seasonal message to passengers departing Aberdeen airport. The local constabulary had other ideas and promptly arrested the 65-year-old and his 25-year-old accomplice for writing "Plane Stupid - you fly, they die" in diluted red ink on a snowy hilltop one-and-a-half miles from the airport.

Geoff Lamb was held for 20 hours before being released at 11am the next morning after an unimpressed procurator fiscal took one look at the case notes before throwing them in the bin. Geoff then had the pleasure of paying £150 to get his car out of the pound where the plod had kindly parked it.

Phoned up by the local newspaper, an embarrassed copper mumbled something about nicking people for "spraying an anti-aviation slogan on a snow-covered embankment". You can insert your own joke about yellow snow and piss taking here, if you like.