Anthill Mob reinforce anti-expansion message during Copenhagen climate talks, London City Airport

8/12/2009
Activists in east Lon­don have paint­ed two mega-mes­sages against growth in avi­a­tion — and flights at Lon­don City Air­port in par­tic­u­lar — to coin­cide with the Copen­hagen cli­mate sum­mit. One mes­sage say­ing, ‘Still cli­mate crim­i­nals!’ is writ­ten in giant let­ters on the top of a 60ft hill sit­u­at­ed just south of City Air­port, which planes pass direct­ly over.

“It’s a mes­sage to the del­e­gates fly­ing to and back from Copen­hagen,” explains Elsie Wai, spokesper­son for local anti-expan­sion group, the Anthill Mob. “The con­sci­en­tious will be tak­ing the train but the self­ish will be fly­ing. We’re remind­ing the self­ish del­e­gates that they’ll remain cli­mate crim­i­nals until they start think­ing green.”

The group are also angry about Lon­don City Airport’s con­tin­u­ing attempts to increase busi­ness and pri­vate flights. The air­port cur­rent­ly has approx­i­mate­ly 80,000 com­mer­cial flights a year but aims to increase this to 170,000 by 2030. “That means more pol­lu­tion, more glob­al warm­ing and more mis­ery for local peo­ple,” says Elsie.

The Anthill Mob’s sec­ond mes­sage is writ­ten in 10ft high let­ters along the bound­ary fence of Tate & Lyle’s sug­ar refin­ery — sit­u­at­ed beside the Dock­lands Light Rail­way approach to the air­port. The mes­sage reads: ‘Drop the sweet talk: no flight expan­sion at City Air­port.’

“You only have to look around the area next to the air­port to see that it is in ter­mi­nal decline,” says Elsie. “The air­port has made mil­lions in prof­its but all we get in return is more noise and pol­lu­tion. Pret­ty much every­thing at City Air­port is auto­mat­ed. As it stands, a tiny num­ber of peo­ple ben­e­fit from employ­ment at the air­port while the wider com­mu­ni­ty and the cli­mate suf­fers.”

Cas­es of asth­ma and child mor­tal­i­ty are already above the nation­al aver­age in the bor­ough of Newham – where the air­port is based. Expand­ing the air­port means a mas­sive increase in pol­lu­tion which will fur­ther blight one of the poor­est areas in Lon­don.