Campaigners build new alliances to stop plans to expand Heathrow - 1st January 2006
Pressure group HACAN ClearSkies today revealed that over the last year Heathrow residents have built up links with a variety of campaign groups, including the radical direct action movement Earth First!, as part of their campaign to stop further expansion at the airport.
The news comes the day after the Treasury confirmed that Gordon Brown was looking afresh at ways of expanding Heathrow. (1)
John Stewart, Chair of HACAN ClearSkies, said, “There will be the mother of all battles if the Government tries to expand Heathrow.” And, Stewart stressed, that this was not just empty rhetoric. He explained that over the last year local residents have met with a large number of environmental groups, including direct action campaigners from Earth First! and Rising Tide. Direct Action training sessions for residents have been held, with more planned for this year.
Stewart said, “For the last two years we have systematically built up alliances across the board in preparation for the inevitable battle that will take place if the Government decides to expand Heathrow. The Government doesn’t seem to realise the forces lining up against it: local residents; nearly all MPs and local authorities in West London and Berkshire; the London Mayor; environmental groups shocked at the implications for global warming; and activists who want a showdown with the aviation industry.”
“The actions in which HACAN members participated in 2005, such as blasting loud music into the home of retiring BA Chief Rod Eddington at 5am on the morning of British Airway’s AGM or jeering at delegates to an international aviation conference when they arrived for their gala dinner on Tower Bridge last month, were just a taster of what is to come if the Government doesn’t withdraw it expansion plans. We’ve stopped speaking to the Department for Transport. We’ve started speaking to Earth First!”
At the end of this year the Government is committed to reviewing its controversial 2003 Aviation White Paper. It is under heavy pressure from the aviation industry, and particularly from British Airways, to give the green light to a third runway at Heathrow. This Spring, it is expected to consult on plans to make more use of the existing runways, by proposing the end of runway alternation, the system where planes landing over London use one runway until 3pm before switching to the other, thus giving a lot of people a half day of relative peace and quiet. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has estimated that, with a third runway in place and runway alternation at an end, flight numbers could exceed 700,000 each year at Heathrow. (2) Last year there were just over 470,000.
Notes for Editors
- The story appeared in The Observer 1/1/06
- The report was by DF Rhodes for the CAA
