Campaigners make their position plain
Protestors opposed to any expansion at Heathrow
Anti-Heathrow expansion campaigners have made it clear that – third runway or not – it will oppose any increased flights at Heathrow.
At the weekend, a Sunday Times article caused a stir when it reported that the Heathrow third runway plan was to be shelved in favour of different methods to step up its activities.
But those against the third runway found their relief was short-lived when two days later, Heathrow denied the claim.
According to The Sunday Times, new chief executive Thomas Woldbye was ‘understood to have begun disbanding Heathrow’s third runway team.’
The paper’s sources said that a new Heathrow team was pulling together plans under the internal strap line of ‘better not bigger’, which was originally coined by anti-expansion campaigners.
But a spokesperson for Heathrow said: “The speculation in [The] Sunday Times is wrong, and the plans and actions described are not reflective of our strategy for future growth.
“Of course we’re looking at how we can optimise the current airport to achieve shortterm growth within our current infrastructure.
“Longer term, we’re reviewing our plans to make sure the airport has the capacity to drive more global connectivity for the UK economy, while boosting the resilience of our operations for our customers, increasing competition for passengers and meeting our sustainability commitments.”
In light of this, the chair of the Stop Heathrow Expansion campaign group, Justine Bayley, has stated that it intends to oppose any and all expansion of Heathrow – not just a third runway.
“We must remind
[Heathrow] that any increase in the limit on flight numbers – currently set at 480,000 per year – is not desired or thought necessary by so many people who live around the airport and beyond,” she wrote.
Heathrow is ‘the largest single polluter in the UK’ and ‘the world’s most disruptive airport,’ affecting 750,000 people with its noise, Ms Bayley added.
Additional capacity with a ‘mixed mode’ allowing planes to arrive and depart on the same runway, ‘could permit an additional 60,000 aircraft movements a year.’
“But this would remove the half day’s respite that switching runways currently provides for those who live under Heathrow’s flight paths,” she wrote.
Heathrow also has the option to ‘revitalise plans from the past’ looking at 25,000 additional flights by redesigning flight paths.
Regardless, Ms Bayley said Stop Heathrow Expansion will oppose, ‘whatever it intends to do to expand.’
“Heathrow is big enough,” she wrote.
“Whether it’s by tens or hundreds of thousands of extra flights per year, Heathrow expansion is unconscionable, unenvironmental and unnecessary – especially when so many existing flights have so many empty seats.”
Heathrow Airport has said it does not support extending night flights, nor routine mixed-mode operations, as it has ‘a commitment in place to provide reliable periods of respite.’
This ‘is not deliverable’ under routine mixed mode operations, the company said.
It added that it does not control the cap on air traffic movements at Heathrow – it could not unilaterally increase the cap without approval from planning authorities.
Instead, it can grow passenger numbers within the existing cap through ‘incremental process improvements’ and with ‘fuller and larger aircraft.’