"Everyone gets gold!"
That was the verdict given by Tom Hoblyn, top Chelsea garden designer, to the four guerrilla gardens created yesterday in the villages under threat from a third runway at Heathrow.
Residents and activists teamed up under bright bank holiday sunshine to transplant hundreds of plants from this year’s Chelsea Flower show, under the expert eyes of Tom and guerrilla gardener, Richard Reynolds. By the end of the day, Sipson, Harmondsworth and Harlington were all blooming, in colourful defiance of BAA's plans. The centre-piece of the Sipson garden was an incredible Eremurus 'Joanna' which came straight out of the Telegraph's winning garden at this year's Chelsea. The Harmondsworth plot was a riot of Busy Lizzies and Harlington dazzled with fiery red flowers. We even had Chelsea strawberries and nasturtiums to help residents finish filling the vegetable plots on the Airplot allotment as well.
Activists and residents of all ages dug shoulder to shoulder determined to make sure that the Chelsea flowers will continue to flourish beyond the time that the third runway plans are but a distant memory.
Plane Stupid activist, Lily Kember, told the press "we've made friends with a lot of the local people here through our 'Adopt a Resident' scheme. Together we're building a network to support all kinds of resistance to BAA's dangerous and unpopular plan. Today, we're working together to beautify the village. Tomorrow, we'll be working together to fortify it."
And local resident, Linda McCutcheon, summed up the feeling of residents: "BAA is threatening to destroy our homes, our communities and our history. But we won't let them, and we know that people from all over the world will stand with us to stop them. We're proud of our villages and we won't let them be destroyed. These plants are a symbol of the life and the resilience in our communities that will eventually defeat BAA and the government who have pushed this expansion. We'll care for the plants for future generations of villagers who'll be able to enjoy them."
The Hay Festival, that other well-known highlight of the bank holiday cultural calendar saw Sir Nicholas Stern deliver another body-blow to the third runway plan. Stern, one of the government's most senior advisors on climate change and the economy, said he thought the Heathrow decision was out of kilter with the Government's climate change policy, saying "you cannot have a carbon policy which is quite tough and ambitious and then take a decision like that which could be very important for future emissions, without a much tighter relationship with that policy."
With business leaders, MPs from all parties, government advisors and now the spirit of Chelsea on our side, let's hope it's not too long before the government wakes up and smells the roses, and ditches this climate-wrecking runway for good.
