Campaigners unite to back third runway challenge
CAMPAIGNERS, residents and West London councils joined together at the Royal Courts of Justice on Monday to throw their weight behind the challenge to build a third runway being built at Heathrow.
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Royal Courts on The Strand to make their voices heard as a High Court judicial review against the government’s plans began.
The five councils, environmental charity Greenpeace and the Mayor of London say the government’s national airport policy should be quashed.
They argue that the proposal to extend the third runway at Heathrow is “politically controversial for obvious reasons: building airports offers potential benefits and causes real harm”.
The coalition includes the London councils Hammersmith and Fulham, Richmond, Hillingdon and Wandsworth, together with the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.
At the High Court on Monday, Nigel Pleming QC, who represents the councils, said if the third runway goes ahead “there will be widespread consequences. There will be hundreds of thousands of additional flights each year across London and also affecting the south-east.”
He warned that it would mean “thousands of people’s homes will be demolished. Many more properties are currently blighted. Hundreds of thousands will experience increased noise, worsened traffic and harmful pollution”.
The councils are joined in their legal challenge by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Greenpeace.
They were also joined by Labour’s deputy leader John McDonnell, Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter and Richmond Park MP Zac Goldsmith.
Speaking outside the High Court, Hammersmith and Fulham council leader Stephen Cowan, said: “This adds a huge amount of air pollution, it adds a tremendous amount of noise and it congests the whole of west London.”
He said he thought the £18m project “will deliver zero value” for taxpayers.
“Heathrow is already one of the most polluted areas for air pollution and that can’t be right that we offer that for the next generation,” he said.
Christina Smyth, the co-chairman of Hammersmith and Fulham No Third Runway campaign, said: “There are going to be 700 more planes going overhead in London.
“We are going to get more noise and air pollution from the planes and extra vehicles coming into the borough.”