Back Heathrow claim 80,000 supporters. Read this letter sent to HACAN and you’ll question their figures immediately:
Dear HACAN,
I am sending you a mailout I received from the pro-Heathrow people, Back Heathrow, because I was so cross and felt misrepresented.
A few weeks ago they mailed everyone locally with a questionnaire, asking for our preferences with flight paths/times etc IF the expansion were to go ahead. I replied, feeling if it did go ahead at least I might have had some say in the conditions. I also wrote at the end that I was opposed to the expansion, did not think we needed the jobs in an area of high employment, that a hub for transit passengers would not benefit anyone except business and it would make the would make the quality of thousands of peoples’ lives much worse.
Imagine my astonishment to receive this mailout a couple of weeks ago, thanking me for being a supporter! This raises a real concern, I think. If they are counting everybody who responded presenting these as a measure of their support, and naturally many local people have replied in the same way I did.
You may already be aware of this, or you feel you can do nothing, but I thought it might give you some way of challenging their figures.
Yours sincerely,
name and address supplied