Protests by Plane Stupid and Transition Heathrow in unity against aviation expansion

3/12/14

Ear­ly this morn­ing pro­test­ers from Plane Stu­pid and Tran­si­tion Heathrow scaled the Heathrow Park Inn Hotel and dropped ban­ners say­ing “Any new run­way would be Plane Stu­pid” and “Run­ner beans not run­ways” in order to show resis­tance to the Davies Commission’s con­sul­ta­tion propos­ing a future run­way at either Heathrow or Gatwick.

If Heathrow Airport’s pro­pos­al for a third run­way went ahead, much of the vil­lage of Har­mondsworth would be demol­ished, with the neigh­bour­ing vil­lages of Sip­son and Har­ling­ton also under threat. Over a mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing in Lon­don could be affect­ed by long term noise and air pol­lu­tion caused by this aggres­sive expan­sion. Heathrow are already exceed­ing EU air pol­lu­tion lim­its, this is like­ly to increase not decrease with a new run­way.

The Davies’ com­mis­sion argues that an expand­ed avi­a­tion indus­try would still allow the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the UK stay­ing with­in its 2050 cli­mate tar­gets of an 80% reduc­tion of CO2 (1), which is need­ed to pre­vent a cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe. This esti­mate relies on pre­dict­ed tech­no­log­i­cal change and the use of bio-fuels. Both are unproven and allow avi­a­tion to remain a spe­cial case, absolv­ing the indus­try of any cli­mate respon­si­bil­i­ty. We find this unac­cept­able.

Plane Stu­pid cam­paign­er Char­lie Smith said:

“The Davies Com­mis­sion is a farce, it has not allowed for the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the best option for the coun­try and the plan­et is to avoid any fur­ther avi­a­tion expan­sion and seek invest­ment in alter­na­tive means of trans­port. The Com­mis­sion has pro­hib­it­ed a real debate about our trans­port future and as such encour­ages any future gov­ern­ment to expand its avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture thus send­ing us fur­ther along the road to cli­mate chaos”