{"id":3558,"date":"2016-04-23T08:56:32","date_gmt":"2016-04-23T08:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/?p=3558"},"modified":"2016-04-23T08:56:32","modified_gmt":"2016-04-23T08:56:32","slug":"back-heathrow-over-claimed-support-for-3rd-runway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/?p=3558","title":{"rendered":"Back Heathrow over-claimed support for 3rd runway"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 150%;\" align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial;\">Advertising Standards Authority bans Back Heathrow Advert over its claim most local people back Heathrow expansion<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an advert from Back Heathrow claiming that most local people back expansion at the airport.\u00a0 <\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">The lobby group, which was set up to push for a third runway and which receives funding from Heathrow Airport, was criticised for failing to provide polling data to back up its claim.\u00a0 <\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">Back Heathrow ran a regional press ad headlined \u201cRallying for the runway\u201d which included with the line \u201cDon\u2019t believe the hype. Most people living in communities near Heathrow Airport support its expansion.\u201d<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/asa\">Advertising Standards Authority<\/a>\u00a0received five complaints that said the claim that the group had widespread local support was misleading.<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">Back Heathrow said in a footnote to the ad that the latest independent polling showed 60% of local residents had \u201cexpressed an opinion in support of expansion\u201d.\u00a0 The ASA found that to get to the statement of 60% in support, the Back Heathrow campaign had excluded 15% of those surveyed on the grounds they had not expressed any opinion, creating their own analysis of just for\/against.<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">\u201cGiven that a significant number of respondents, who had expressed an opinion albeit a neutral one, had been excluded from the sample, we considered that this was not a suitable methodology by which to draw such a conclusion,\u201d ruled the ASA. \u201cWe considered that the evidence held back by Back Heathrow demonstrated that only 50% of all those polled were in support of expansion.\u201d<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">The ASA said that therefore Back Heathrow did not substantiate its claim that \u201cmost\u201d people living in communities near Heathrow airports supported its expansion.\u00a0 \u201cConsequently, the ad breached the [advertising] code,\u201d the ASA ruled. \u201cWe told Back Heathrow not to repeat the claims \u2026 unless it held robust substantiation for them.\u201d<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">John Stewart, chair HACAN, the campaign group which opposes Heathrow expansion, \u201cThis ruling is a real blow to Back Heathrow as a cornerstone of its strategy has been to try to convince decision-makers that a majority of local people back a third runway.\u00a0 These claims are now starting to unravel.\u201d<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 150%;\"><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advertising Standards Authority bans Back Heathrow Advert over its claim most local people back Heathrow expansion \u00a0 The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an advert from Back Heathrow claiming that most local people back expansion at the airport.\u00a0 The lobby group, which was set up to push for a third runway and which receives &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/?p=3558\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Back Heathrow over-claimed support for 3rd runway&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}