Heathrow is the largest and busiest airport in the UK, and along with four other airports (Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and City) provide London with twice the capacity of Paris.
Over 100,000 flights from Heathrow a year go to cities within 500 Km, destinations easily reachable by train. The number one destination from Heathrow is Paris, the fourth is Manchester.
One third of Heathrow passengers are en route to other destinations and bring no benefit to the UK economy. Aviation tourism creates a £15billion annual deficit in the UK economy and the aviation industry receives £9billion a year in tax subsidies.
Despite this Government and BAA want to build a third runway, massively expanding the airport, and making Heathrow the single largest source of CO2 emissions, leaving the UK’s climate policy (and international reputation) in tatters.
The DfT estimate that the construction of the third runway will reduce the number of people employed at Heathrow from 63,000 to 56,000 due to ‘increased efficiency’. An independent study commissioned by WWF calculates that a third runway will, rather than benefiting the UK economy, would instead lead to a £5billion loss.
Greenpeace has been actively campaigning to make the Government see sense and to cancel these plans. The local SW London Greenpeace network has been heavily involved in this campaign as have a host of local groups. The campaign has involved, Voices street campaigning, subvertising, the mother of all injunctions, a climate camp, tickets exchanges, polling on the streets, a flawed consultation, direct action, public meetings, flash mobs, support from celebrities, Labour rebellions, A Big No, a legal challenge, a Climate Rush, the purchase of a plot of land, scenes from the goodlife, a field at Glastonbury , Guerilla Gardening, a Big Lunch and so much more.
Please see the case against Heathrow
The campaign is far from over…
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