Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Heathrow: more lies emerge

GW | 15.12.2007 00:45 | Climate Camp 2007 | Climate Chaos | London

Heathrow 3rd runway consultation prospectus exposed over number of threatened homes and cost attributed to CO2 emissions

1.  http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23427164-details/Public+%27misled%27+on+number+of+homes+lost+for+Heathrow/article.do

Public 'misled' on number of homes lost for Heathrow
Jason Beattie, Chief Political Correspondent
13.12.07

Ministers have been accused of misleading the public over the number of homes to be destroyed to make way for Heathrow expansion.

A consultation document on the plans says no more than 700 properties would need to be bulldozed to make way for the third runway and sixth terminal.

But MPs say the actual figure could be as high as 4,000, forcing as many as 10,000 people to find new places to live.

During a heated Commons debate about the Government's proposals to expand the airport, a succession of MPs lined up to condemn them and the "biased" consultation process.

Hayes and Harlington MP John McDonnell said the figures used in the consultation document were out of line with a previous study, Runway Capacity to Serve the South-East, which had concluded at least 3,300 homes would have to be obliterated if a third runway went ahead.

He said that if development since then was taken into account then as many as 4,000 homes would need to be razed.

"Whole communities will be wiped out," said the Labour MP.

"The assessment has been doctored, the consultation process has been fixed and the planning policy has been rigged."

John Randall, Tory MP for Uxbridge, said plans to bulldoze homes near the airport were akin to the Highland clearances, when thousands of tenant farmers were evicted by rich landowners.

He described expansion as "potty" and asked the Government to explain where the evicted families would live given there was no available housing in the area.

He added that BAA, the airport's operator, had reneged on its promise when seeking permission for Terminal Five that there would be no further expansion.

"It seems to me that having Heathrow next door is like having a bully there," Mr Randall told MPs.

He also took the Government to task for looking to increase the number of flights from 420,000 a year to more than 700,000 at the same time it was preaching the importance of curbing carbon emissions.

"If [the Government] is really serious about curbing all these emissions and trying to stop climate change, they should show leadership and say, 'enough is enough'," he said.

Nick Hurd, the Conservative MP for Ruislip-Northwood, questioned the Government's claim that the business community in London was wholly in favour of expansion. He pointed to a recent survey by the Institute of Directors which found only a tiny minority of its members backed a bigger Heathrow.

"The point we hear is people want a better airport, not a bigger airport," he said.

Aviation minister Jim Fitzpatrick defended the plans, saying anyone evicted from their home as a result of expansion would be fully compensated.

London Evening Standard


2.  http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article3247560.ece

Climate costs 'fiddled' for third runway at Heathrow
By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent
Published: 13 December 2007
A "bogus accounting trick" has been used to justify building a third runway at Heathrow and ministers have seriously underestimated the environmental impact of the development, it was claimed yesterday.

Campaigners and opposition MPs warned that a cost analysis of the project's impact on the climate came up with a figure which was only a third of that set out in a global warming study for the Government by the former Treasury official Sir Nicholas Stern.

The consultation paper on the expansion of Heathrow, published last month, said the cost of climate change caused by the project would be £4.8bn. But Friends of the Earth insisted that the true figure, based on Sir Nicholas's estimate, was £13.4bn.

The Department for Transport claims building a third runway will increase the number of flights to and from Heathrow from 473,000 a year to 700,000-plus by 2030, and generate an extra 181 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2080.

Simon Bullock, of Friends of the Earth, said: "The Government is using a bogus accounting trick to force through its massively damaging Heathrow expansion. The economic and social damage from climate change far outweighs the benefits to rich passengers 30 years from now getting slightly cheaper flights.

"If the Government is as serious as it claims to be about tackling climate change, it would announce a halt to new runways, at Heathrow and elsewhere."

Martin Horwood, the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, added: "This is a disgrace. The Government has massaged the figures to hide the impact of this unwanted and unnecessary expansion. As a result, it has given the green light to one of the very projects that will stop it meeting its own carbon reduction targets. The cost to the environment and the economy will be dreadful."

The consultation claims the net benefit of the scheme will be £5bn, "even after taking account of climate change and noise costs". But Friends of the Earth said that if ministers used a less optimistic figure for the cost of climate change, any economic benefits of the runway would be wiped out by its environmental consequences. Guidance from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, published in July, estimated that the cost of Heathrow's extra C02 emissions would be £19 per tonne at 2000 prices. The Stern review, by contrast, quoted £53 per tonne, based on the price of carbon if the world did not curb emissions, Mr Bullock said.

The public has until 27 February to respond to the proposals for a third runway, a sixth terminal and changes to take-off and landing patterns and aircraft approach routes.

Edward Lister, the leader of Wandsworth Council and a spokesman for the 2M group, which represents 12 local authorities affected by the development, said yesterday: "The assumptions in the consultation are totally flawed. This whole thing will end up in court."

The Independent

GW

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. The Heathrow Madness — pam hardyment
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech