Residents protest at Manchester Airport

On Sat­ur­day 3rd Novem­ber around 100 local res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers took part in a protest walk against the pro­posed World Logis­tics Hub at Man­ches­ter Air­port. The pro­test­ers braved the cold to take a route around the 90 acre for­mer green­belt site, which is threat­ened by the plans to build 43 car­go sheds and almost 1,500 car park­ing space

Local res­i­dents, wildlife enthu­si­asts and envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers spoke at var­i­ous points along the walk, shar­ing their expe­ri­ences of fight­ing Man­ches­ter Air­port expan­sion and high­light­ing the numer­ous ways that the plans would affect local peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment.

 

The Wildlife Walk came the week after the Wythen­shawe Area Committee‘recommended for approval’ the World Logis­tics Hub plans, on the 25th Octo­ber.  The appli­ca­tion will now be sent to the Plan­ning and High­ways Com­mit­tee at Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil for a final deci­sion on 22nd Novem­ber 2012. A num­ber of atten­dees at the Wildlife Walk, keen for their con­cerns to be brought to this Com­mit­tee, pledged to attend this Novem­ber meet­ing at Man­ches­ter Town Hall.

Sev­er­al Coun­cil­lors of the Wythen­shawe Area Com­mit­tee backed the Logis­tics Hub plans based on the Air­port’s promis­es of local job oppor­tu­ni­ties. How­ev­er cam­paign­ers argue that

job cre­ation fig­ures pro­posed by the Air­port are inflat­ed.

Jane Beet­son from ‘Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port’ cam­paign  said “When Man­ches­ter Air­port first announced plans for a sec­ond run­way, they claimed 50,000 jobs would be cre­at­ed.  No-where near that num­ber of jobs mate­ri­alised.  Just like then, they are mis­lead­ing the pub­lic now.”

She added, “Local Coun­cil­lors say they will force the Air­port to give jobs to local peo­ple but in prac­tice they will have no way of enforc­ing this on the firms that move into the new office and ware­house spaces.  We need to cre­ate green jobs in sus­tain­able indus­tries not dirty avi­a­tion.” 

The Wildlife Walk was also an oppor­tu­ni­ty for wildlife experts to explain that Air­port’s promis­es of pre­serv­ing wildlife are also unre­al­is­tic, and that cre­at­ing a ‘mit­i­ga­tion zone’ is no sub­sti­tu­tion for leav­ing habi­tats untouched.

Along the route, cam­paign­ers encoun­tered the threat­ened habi­tats of numer­ous plant and ani­mal species. Sev­er­al mature oak trees line Sun­bank Lane, pro­vid­ing nest­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for rare birds, and poten­tial roost­ing spots for endan­gered bat species. The site is also home to 12 ponds occu­pied by Great Crest­ed Newts, an endan­gered species found only in the North West of Eng­land. Walk­ers were also able to spot signs of pro­tect­ed ani­mals for exam­ple bad­ger snuf­fle holes and mole hills in the green space around Sun­bank.