Local residents have reacted with fury to reports that BAA Ferrovial is to fast track a 3rd runway at Heathrow (1). The reports suggest that there will be public consultation on plans for a third runway, probably in the autumn. It had originally been thought that this consultation would largely focus on proposals to end runway alternation, the practice where planes landing over West London switch runways at 3pm to give residents a half day’s relief from the noise.
A 3rd runway at Heathrow was put on the back burner following the publication of the Aviation While Paper in 2003 because of fears that, if it was built, pollution levels in the Heathrow areas would exceed the EU legal limits. BAA Ferrovial decided, instead, to proceed with a second runway at Stansted.
But Stephen Nelson, Chief Executive of BAA Ferrovial, has now indicated that the company is looking to “twin-track” plans for runways at Heathrow and Stansted (1). In the next few months the Department for Transport is expected to publish its Project Heathrow Report, a study which reassess future airport pollution levels around the airport if a 3rd runway were to be built. Consultation would follow publication of that study.
A 3rd runway would increase flight numbers at Heathrow to 720,000 a year from last year’s level of 473,000. It would require at least 700 homes to be demolished and would result in over 150,000 people in London and the Home Counties experiencing disturbing levels of aircraft noise for the first time.
John Stewart, Chair of residents group HACAN ClearSkies, said, “If BAA decides to proceed with its proposals to built a 3rd runway, there will be the mother of all environmental battles. I have no doubt residents will take to the streets. Last month residents disrupted a speech to an international aviation conference by Transport Minister Douglas Alexander. Unless BAA drops its plans to built a 3rd runway and get rid of runway alternation, many more residents will take direct action.”
Stewart added that the opposition to further expansion at Heathrow is wide-ranging. It includes 2M, the local authority group representing two million people under the flight path, the Mayor of London, nearly all MPs in the area as well as direct action organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.
ENDS
Notes for Editors:
(1) The reports emerged in the Sunday Times (1st April). Stephen Nelson, chief executive of BAA Ferrovial, the airports group that owns Heathrow and other UK airports, told the Sunday Times it was looking at “twin-tracking” the proposed runways at Heathrow and Stansted — contrary to previous government and BAA policy, which put Stansted first, with Heathrow to follow only after 2015.
For further information contact John Stewart on 0207 737 6641 or 07957385650