Heathrow protest due ahead of expected expansion decision

11:17am Monday 12th January 2009

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Campaigners on both sides of the runway are stepping up pressure on the Government ahead of this week’s expected decision on Heathrow expansion.

Environmentalists are set to demonstrate inside the airport’s Terminal 1 tonight, while business lobbyists, Future Heathrow, have taken out a series of advertisements in a number of today’s national newspapers claiming growth at Heathrow is vital for the long-term competitiveness of the economy.

Baroness Jo Valentine, CEO of London First said: “Business needs to fly and will do so long after the current economic turmoil. A third runway will be an asset to London and to the UK economy if it comes with the right conditions - no new flights until delays have fallen, a tough independent environmental monitor and world class customer service.”

Future Heathrow campaign director Lord Clive Soley said Heathrow had been allowed to slip down the international league of hub airports and without a third runway Heathrow's international position would continue to decline.

One of the most vociferous opponents to expansion, not only of a third runway which would see the destruction of the medieval Middlesex village Sipson but also the abolition of runway alteration, which grants residents under the flight path a half day’s respite, is Hacan’s John Stewart.

Mr Stewart argues new research challenges the view that unless Heathrow expands business will go elsewhere and more passengers fly in and out of London than any other city on earth, giving it some of the best air connections in the world.

He said: “The industry misrepresents the situation because it doesn’t compare like with like. It compares Heathrow with Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. What it should do is compare the number of people using all London’s airports with the number using all the airports at these other so-called competitor cities. When that is done as very different picture emerges.”

The research showed in 2007 a combined total of 139m passengers used Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and City airports. That compares with 88m who used all of the Paris airports, London’s closest European rival.

Mr Stewart added: “These figures destroy the myth London has poor connections. London remains the best connected city in Europe. It is a pity that, in their desperation to see Heathrow expanded, the aviation industry chooses to play fast and loose with the facts.”

Richmond Park MP Susan Kramer, who leads the Liberal Democrats’ campaign against the expansion of Heathrow, said: “The Government’s credibility on climate change depends on this decision.

“Pushing ahead with Heathrow expansion will show up ministers’ warm words on the environment to be nothing more than hot air.

“The public has continued to defy BAA’s bully-boy tactics to protest against a proposal that will not just be a disaster for west London but a disaster for the climate.”

• For full coverage of the Terminal 1 protest visit rttimes.co.uk and see this week’s Richmond and Twickenham Times. What do you think of Heathrow expansion? Should a third runway be built? Have your say using the comment feature below.