airport expansion | ukwatch.net

Heathrow's Strange History of Evasion and Expansion

Ellie Keen — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

London’s Heathrow airport is an ever-expanding city state that sucks in workers in the pursuit of profit. It is the world’s busiest international airport and it grows constantly with an accumulation of land, wealth and pollution for the sake of commerce.

Heathrow is a 24-hour shopping centre with a captive audience. It is a fenced-in, steel and glass cathedral to the market, and keeps running because of low wages and exploitation.

Once a minute a plane flies over the heads of those living nearby. The flights are low and loud enough that conversation has to stop. Some two million people are affected by noise and pollution from the airport.

The airport handles 67.5 million passengers a year and is the biggest single-site employer in Britain. It currently directly employs some 72,000 people and supports perhaps another 100,000 jobs.

In the London suburbs of Southall and Hounslow, the small sweatshops that hid behind the high streets in the 1960s and 1970s were closed down.

But they were replaced by the multinational sweatshops of the airline caterers, and the overpriced coffee and food chains.

Heathrow’s workers have had to struggle hard to win decent living standards throughout the airport’s history. Asian workers had to struggle to even get jobs there.

The 1970s saw a period of militancy at the airport with a number of strikes, including a massive engineering strike in 1977 over pay, which won after two weeks.

That militancy still exists. Check-in staff walked out unofficially in July 2003 against new clocking on and off procedures.

After catering staff at the Gate Gourmet firm were sacked in 2005, thousands of workers across the airport walked out unofficially in their support.

Hub

British lobbyists and the bosses talk about the need for a “hub” airport to justify Heathrow’s existence.

Their business model assumes it is more efficient to put passengers on feeder flights in and out of a huge hub airport.

Federal Express developed this “hub-and spoke” model in the 1950s in the US. It found that it could move parcels more profitably from New York to Washington by flying them 1,000 miles from New York to Memphis and then 800 miles to Washington, rather than shipping them directly by road.

Passenger airlines all rushed to copy the model. It isn’t that efficient for parcels, never mind people or the planet. But it was profitable.

During the Second World War, the aviation industry saw Heathrow – then a small airfield surrounded by market gardens – as the ideal opportunity to make a profit.

The Tory aviation minister Harold Balfour agreed with them. But Balfour recognised that he would not persuade the cabinet to go for Heathrow unless he sold it to them as an airport essential to the war effort.

So the cabinet agreed to proposals for a military airport. The RAF never used Heathrow. The embryonic airline industry had got its way by deception.

Balfour had used a wartime emergency requisition order to avoid a lengthy and costly public inquiry.

He wrote, “Almost the last thing I did at the air ministry of any importance was to hijack for civil aviation the land on which London [Heathrow] airport stands under the noses of resistant ministerial colleagues. If hijack is too strong a term, I plead guilty to the lesser crime of deceiving a cabinet committee.”

As Heathrow was born so it has grown. The location of the airport itself, to the west of London, is irrational. The site is low lying, being 25 metres above sea level, and prone to fog.

Heathrow is the only main urban airport that lies on an east-west axis relative to the city it serves.

This is a problem because prevailing winds in much of the world blow from west to east. Runways have to be aligned in this direction and aircraft using Heathrow must take off and land over densely-populated parts of London.

The perversely sited central terminals can only be reached by tunnels. Their position was based on the presumption that there would never be a need for large car parks since airline passengers would be wealthy – and therefore they would be chauffeur-driven.

Yet at the same time the original plan for the airport envisaged extension to the north.

That would have involved demolishing the villages of Harmondsworth, Sipson and Harlington. After opposition the plans were abandoned in December 1952.

The air ministry committee wrote, “No government would be prepared to consider a project that involved razing to the three old world villages of Harmondsworth, Sipson and Harlington to the ground.”

The men from the ministry hadn’t envisaged New Labour. The government is expected to oversee the expansion of Heathrow that will see the destruction of those very same areas.

The high street in Harmondsworth will be split, and a graveyard bulldozed. Sipson will disappear. In total around 4,000 houses will have to be demolished or abandoned.

Some 700 of these were built after a 1952 government guarantee that even if Heathrow expanded, Sipson would remain untouched.

Villages

The government claims that anyone evicted from their home as a result of expansion will be fully compensated, though how is not yet clear.

The villages might be almost stereotypical, with listed buildings, old churches and the like. But the people who live in them are workers in the airport.

People who have worked in Heathrow for decades are heading up the protests against the new runway.

Those who keep Heathrow running are those who suffer most directly from the pollution it produces.

They are to be evicted, and their homes consumed by the airport they work in.

That is the logic of allowing business to take precedence over people and the planet.

Airport expansion is Plane Stupid

Ellie Keen — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:25:58 +0000

Expansion at Heathrow does not only fly in the face of the scientific imperative that we reduce our emissions. It also makes a farce of the democratic process on which we traditionally rely.

On May the 2nd Britain woke up to a very different political landscape. The significant Tory gains told of the shadows to come: shadows which indicate just how dark our future could be. With Boris now mayor, London’s hopes for setting a benchmark to radicalise the Brown government’s environmental policies have faded. No longer have we a mayor who is willing openly to confront the climate-wrecking policies of New Labour.

This is, however, only a small part of the story. A Tory government may do little to alter the business-as-usual trajectory to catastrophic climate change; but Brown is certainly not taking the necessary harsh measures he once purported to advocate. Not only is he doing nothing to reduce UK emissions in line with targets, but he is actively supporting and investing in irresponsible projects that will entail massive emissions growth. At the forefront of these projects is the expansion of Heathrow.

Expansion at Heathrow does not only fly in the face of the scientific imperative that we reduce our emissions. It also makes a farce of the democratic process on which we traditionally rely. The public consultation on adding capacity at Heathrow highlighted the undemocratic nature of the government’s actions. In not allowing dissenting voices within the parameters of the document, it denied the vast democratic majority a voice in choosing the fate of their own city, country and indeed their planet. Instead, what it did, quite clearly, was to highlight the cosy relationship between Brown and big business.

Democracy is failing us. Our representative government is not representing us; we have no voice in the decisions that determine our fate. The aviation industry, already subsidised to the tune of £10 billion annually, is now quite explicitly driving public policy. The locus of power is not with the people, or even their representatives, but with profit and business. The old accusation that it is corporations who take these decisions rings truer as every new policy – whether it be in energy, transport or elsewhere – is announced. So where does this leave us?

Where institutionalised democracy fails, an alternative is needed – an alternative that reminds people what it is to have a voice and to participate in the decision-making processes that shape the outcomes of their lives. Non-violent direct action is a legitimate, if not the only remaining, response to this democratic failure. When the traditional channels of politics are rendered so corrupt, we must look beyond them.

Plane Stupid have made clear that direct action against the aviation industry and their government cronies is vital: both as a means of raising public awareness regarding the dire consequences of airport expansion and the impact of air travel on our battle to stop climate change; and as a method of collective bargaining with which the government must engage. Direct action gives a platform to those disempowered by parliamentary politics – to those that party politics consistently neglects.

This generation of activists are the last generation who can stop climate change. We have seen the failure of traditional forms of protest during the run-up to Iraq. Plane Stupid know – as do so many others, both young and old – that if we are to stop the business-as-usual agenda, that direct action is a means we must use. We also know what it is to participate directly in true democracy: with our horizontal power structures and our consensus decision-making processes, the activist community could certainly give the Brown government a lesson or two in successful democracy.

In 2007, 78% of people said that they would be prepared to change their behaviour to tackle the threat of climate change: given this, we must wonder why, in light of such a clear mandate, the government consistently fails to act.

But it may perhaps be time to leave aside such questions and begin the long course of action necessary to meet today’s challenges. We will try to stop irresponsible political decisions. We will try to reverse them if they are made. But as democracy continues to be left in the gutter it should not surprise anyone that when the time comes, Plane Stupid and many others – both inside and outside party politics – will be there to meet the bulldozers.

If we are to confront the true nature of the climate threat, the government must first scrap its airport expansion plans. The construction of the Third Runway at Heathrow would make meeting even the pathetically inadequate 60% reduction target impossible. Research from the Tyndall Centre shows that with expansion on this business-as-usual trajectory, flight numbers will treble by 2050. This is not going to stop climate change. The public has woken up to this reality: is it not, now, the turn of the government to face the facts?

Heathrow Expansion

Ellie Keen — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:12:41 +0000

Any government which, on the one hand pledges to make a significant reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020, and in the next breath gives the green light to the greatest expansion of aviation in a generation is guilty of either the most shameless hypocrisy, or the most unforgivable ignorance and stupidity.

Green Party Principal Speaker Dr. Caroline Lucas has submitted damning evidence to the Government’s consultation on the proposed expansion of Heathrow Airport, and today labelled the plans for a third runway as ‘irresponsible, deceptive and environmentally disastrous’.

In her consultation response, Dr Lucas condemns the proposals, citing the devastating effects on climate change, noise and air pollution, as well as risks to public safety that would be caused by expanding Heathrow capacity from 430,000 flights to between 700,000 and 800,000 flights per year.

She goes on to criticise the “flawed” and ‘leading’ methods of the public consultation, accusing the Government of continuously ‘moving the goalposts’ in their arguments.

In her submission to the Heathrow Consultation, Dr Lucas urged the Government to give full consideration to the views of her constituents in the South East, whose lives will be adversely affected by an expansion.

Dr. Lucas, who has campaigned against Heathrow expansion for several years, addressed a ‘Stop Heathrow Expansion’ rally at Westminster on Monday (25th February), a landmark event which attracted a huge attendance of over 3,000 people.

She said: “The Government’s continuing support for an expansion of Heathrow airport demonstrates a complete contempt for the environment, the health of UK citizens and for our democratic processes.

“A third runway would have disastrous consequences for residents in my South East constituency – leading to serious environmental damage and social upheaval through increased pollution, and the destruction of local communities.

Dr Lucas warned that the Transport Secretary’s proposals for Heathrow would condemn the UK to an unsustainable future of significantly higher noise and air pollution – and to accelerating climate change.

“Any government which, on the one hand pledges to make a significant reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020, and in the next breath gives the green light to the greatest expansion of aviation in a generation is guilty of either the most shameless hypocrisy, or the most unforgivable ignorance and stupidity.

“Despite the promises which were made to limit further expansion, this Government has persisted in a deceptive campaign for a third runway which its own figures estimate will almost double the number of flights using Heathrow each year.

“Whichever way you look at the Government’s proposals on aviation, they are a social and environmental disaster. What we need is a sustainable transport policy which incentivises train travel, makes aviation pay its true costs and restricts airport capacity.

She concluded: “It is crucial for the environment and our democratic processes that the Government responds to the concerns expressed during the consultation, and accepts that there is no simply public appetite for a third runway.”

The full text of Dr. Lucas’s submission can be found at the Green Party’s website

Flight Fight

Ellie Keen — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:20:03 +0000

It is the best of times and the worst of times to be a climate change activist. The topic is more potent than it has ever been, yet political action on climate change still limps far behind the science, and the science itself fails to keep up with what is actually happening to our climate. Nowhere is this inertia more evident than in the attitude of the government and the public to flying.

From international hubs to tiny airfields, airports are expanding across the UK. The government is currently holding a consultation on the expansion of Heathrow, where a proposed third runway could see the number of planes rise from 473,000 to more than 720,000 a year. Almost every major hub is pressing for more flights, extra runways and new terminals, while, at the other end of the scale, even tiny airfields like Lydd in the Kent marshes have their sights set on growth. But equally remarkable is the scale and variety of protest against these airport expansions. Virtually every project is being opposed, by campaigns both locally and nationally.

‘Climate change and noise are the two factors driving the campaigners. What initially gets residents campaigning is the noise, the sheer number of planes going overhead. But for most of the large environmental groups climate change is the key factor,’ says John Stewart, chair of the national umbrella body Airport Watch. ‘Local and national are brought together. Government can’t be serious about climate change and continue with an aggressive programme of airport expansion.’

Campaigns have sprung up against a background of perceived failure in government climate policy towards aviation expansion. In December 2003, the government white paper, The Future of Air Transport gave the go ahead for a massive programme of airport building at Heathrow, Stansted, Newcastle, Bristol and many other sites to facilitate the growth of what it sees as an economically crucial industry. In this rush to expand, the looming issue of climate change has been virtually ignored, as have the persistent local complaints about aircraft noise and the destruction of countryside.

Airport expansion campaigners say that the current 6-7 per cent share of UK greenhouse gas emissions caused by flying will grow rapidly in the coming decades. According to the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, even if the aviation industry grew at only half the rate it did in 2004, by 2050 the industry would consume between half and all of the UK carbon budget necessary to prevent ‘dangerous’ climate change. And because the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are released at such a high altitude, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that the climate changing effect of flying is around two to four times greater than if the carbon dioxide produced were emitted on the ground. Far from doing their bit to avoid climate change, airports and airlines are being allowed to trample over the efforts of the rest of society.

Coming together
Airport Watch, founded in 2000, reflects the scope of opposition arranged against airport expansion. It loosely links together major international environmental bodies, such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, with conservation groups like the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the National Trust. Also joining the movement have been wildlife organisations including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, local anti-noise campaigns, the World Development Movement and more radical direct action groups like Plane Stupid and Rising Tide, to name a few.

Co-operation between groups with very different initial concerns has in many places led to major success, not least because by working together groups can neutralise the most regular criticisms levelled at them. Noise campaigners who have also taken on board messages about the melting ice caps are harder to dismiss as ‘nimbys’, whereas a green group allied to the local parish council is better placed to resist ‘tree-hugging’ stereotypes.

In August 2007, the Camp for Climate Action at Heathrow attracted international attention, helped by the Independent newspaper who revealed that BAA were seeking an injunction to not only keep groups like Plane Stupid away from the airport and large parts of the London transport network, but also to restrict members of the National Trust, the RSPB and the Woodland Trust because of their affiliation to Airport Watch. By building such a wide coalition against Heathrow, it has become harder for the airports to portray opposition as a radical fringe.

Not only are different groups uniting at an organisational level, but residents’ campaigns are being increasingly influenced by the tactics of the direct action environmental groups.

‘Local residents have politely and obediently responded to planning applications, written to their councillors or MP, written to government ministers – and all the other polite middle class things to do … and been fobbed off time and time again,’ says Sarah Clayton of Airport Watch.

‘They are becoming frustrated, and increasingly realise that some form of direct action is the only way to actually get the powers-that-be to sit up and take notice. Middle England ladies in pearls and twin sets are becoming, cautiously, quite interested in direct action out of desperation and despair at the conventional democratic process. Climate Camp was a remarkable success in many ways.’

Divide and rule
Yet there still remains a split between the concerns of residents and those of the environmental groups, and this can allow airports to divide and rule campaigns against them. In 2006, the Duchy of Lancaster proposed a £3million plan to expand the capacity of Tatenhill, a former second world war airfield near Burton-on-Trent, to accommodate 20,000 more flights a year on top of the current 30,000. During a planning inquiry in November last year into the development, the local opposition – Tatenhill Action Group – dropped its challenge after the Duchy agreed to noise restrictions, limited operating hours and restrictions on jets. Friends of the Earth was left alone, still opposing the expansion on climate change grounds.

‘The place where you have the most success is where all parties play all cards regarding local and national issues,’ explains Chris Crean, the Midlands regional campaigner for Friends of the Earth, who continues to fight Tatenhill’s expansion, ‘and equally where they are aware of how the application fits into planning policies, be they local, regional, or national.’

Integration of the climate change argument is increasingly important in any campaign, as it continues to move up the political agenda. Pat Mathewson, of Airport Concern Exeter, argues that, ‘In Exeter there was a consensus not to use the climate change argument; to keep it local; to focus on noise; to sound as if we were not against the airport as such; asking for sympathy for those under the flight path and so on. I think in retrospect this was a mistake. I did, personally, use climate change in my personal arguments to the local councillors.’

The potential of the anti-expansion coalitions is plain to see. Combining a wider green agenda with stiff local defiance, many campaigners see parallels with the opposition to road building schemes in the 1990s. Yet without clear expansion flashpoints, environmental groups may lose their newfound allies and be unable to carry the momentum against airports into the wider movement against climate change.

Just as the composition of anti-expansion groups is complex and changing, so are their methods. Direct action has proved to be the most successful in attracting media attention, with the Camp for Climate Action last August making headlines and the blockade of a Manchester airport security check-in by Plane Stupid and Manchester Climate Action in October also receiving widespread media attention.

Direct action pros and cons
‘Other forms of protest simply don’t work anymore,’ claims Robbie Gillett, an activist for Plane Stupid. ‘Marching from A to B and passively listening to a speaker at a rally will not be enough to stop climate change. At best these can help people get involved. But at worst, they can leave people feeling disempowered.’ ‘For example, the action last October at Manchester airport involving seven people locking on and blockading the domestic flight departure lounge got more media attention than the march in December with 5,000 people in London.’

Yet the media coverage of direct action is very often tinged with alarmism in the shadow of 9/11, with the Sun, for example, running headlines such as ‘Activists plot Heathrow hell’ when the climate campers assembled last summer. Some activists, although by no means a majority, have warned that high-profile national direct action risks scaring off more ‘moderate’ support for local campaigns.

‘The legal controversy around the [climate] camp was useful, but generally direct action is a distraction and can damage our support amongst more moderate people,’ says Jeremy Birch of Bristol Friends of the Earth, which is currently campaigning to prevent a doubling of passengers at Bristol International Airport.

However, as long as public opinion increasingly demands action on climate change, and aviation protesters can demonstrate they have a broad base of support, then direct action will become an increasingly powerful tool for those who feel powerless using traditional channels of protest. It looks set to overtake marching and petitioning as a tactic to gain the media’s attention over aviation expansion, especially as a small group of direct activists are far better able to deliver an ‘on message’ argument to the press.

Gary Dwyer, part of the media team for the Camp for Climate Action, says: ‘Imagine if those 1,500 people at the camp had signed a card to their MP and tell me what you think would’ve happened.’

‘Direct action opens doors, it ramps up pressure, it beckons the spotlight over. But it’s more than just aggressive lobbying; it empowers those who take part. They go away enthused and fired up, feeling like they can be heard and that they do have the right to directly affect things that affect them. Once tasted, you keep going back for more.’

The resort to direct action is partly a result of the lack of success campaigners have had convincing local politicians to stand up to central government policy. But there have been a few victories. In November 2006, Uttlesford district council rejected a planning application from BAA to allow a big increase in flights at Stansted, after it was bombarded with objections from local communities. Although a new runway is still a possibility, Ruth Kelly has indicated that the expansion of Heathrow, not Stansted, will be the government’s priority, and is now the focus of the battle against airport growth in the south east.

A public consultation into the building of a third runway and a sixth terminal at Heathrow is due to be completed on 27 February, but campaigners say that often ‘consultations’ are far more ornamental than real. ‘Feedback’ is sprinkled over essentially unchanged plans.

More likely to trip up the government are EU pollution limits, due to come into force in 2010, which John Stewart says are already exceeded in parts of London under flight paths. The idea touted by the government that better plane and car cleanliness will by 2020 have reduced pollution to European standards, despite a new runway, is utterly implausible, he says.

The influence of the state-backed expansion juggernaut means that local politicians are often no more willing to listen to the arguments against airport growth than the government. Campaigners from Airport Concern Exeter claimed that certain councillors had conflicts of interest that ‘bordered on corruption’, citing that the leader of East Devon district council, who will receive Exeter airport’s planning application, councillor Sara Randall Johnson, is also the head of PR for budget airline Flybe.

Changing government policy
Even if they are willing to oppose expansion plans, the difficulty that local authorities face is that after a planning or public inquiry into an airport’s application for expansion, the final decision is made by one or more departments of central government. Power over airport expansion is centralised, and therefore the ultimate aim of most major groups remains policy change from the government.

‘The number one aim is to get government policy to change,’ concludes Sarah Clayton. ‘Government is the first target, as well as the EU. Airlines just do what they are allowed to, to make money. Government can control the future projections, future expansion or not, and so on. So a primary aim is getting the aviation white paper modified, so it is in line with UK climate change policy. Ministers at the Department of Transport are dimly aware that there is a massive inconsistency in policy, and at some stage something has to give.’

There was minimal change to the aviation white paper when it was reviewed in 2006, and proposals to include aviation into the European Union’s emissions trading scheme by 2011 have been repeatedly attacked as inadequate by Friends of the Earth Europe. Nonetheless, the lack of any current international framework on aviation has not prevented governments from taking unilateral action on domestic flights. As part of France’s recent ‘grenelle de l’environnement’, President Sarkozy announced taxes on domestic flights where the same route has a TGV connection, for example from Paris to Lyon or Paris to Bordeaux.

Governments may be unwilling to act to stem the explosion in aviation and airport building, but ultimately only they hold the power to do so. Campaigners will have most success if they manage to combine broad-based, localised opposition with the desperate need for urgent policy changes to avert climate change via creative and inclusive direct action initiatives.

More information:
www.airportwatch.org.uk
www.stopheathrowexpansion.com
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