Peter Lockley of AirportWatch

Heathrow expansion: the case against

Plans for a third runway at Heathrow have divided opinion with the many local residents, prominent politicians and climate change campaigners firmly against the expansion. Peter Lockley of AirportWatch makes the case for why we don't need a third runway at Heathrow.

Debate: should a third runway be built at Heathrow?

Protests against a third runway at Heathrow (Image © Steve Parsons/PA Wire)

Aviation is the fastest-growing source of climate change emissions. Although the industry now pays lip-service to ideas of sustainability, it is unable, or unwilling, to grasp the simple truth that the planned expansion of the UK’s airports is not compatible with what needs to be done to tackle climate change.

Aviation currently accounts for 13% of the damage the UK does to the climate, once you factor in the non-CO2 impacts of aviation (contrails, the extra cirrus clouds that can form from them and the effects of other exhaust gases at altitude).

All forecasts show these emissions rising, since improvements in technology cannot keep pace with the rise in passenger numbers.

And this comes at a time when we need to cut our overall emissions by 80-90% if we are to stand a reasonable chance of avoiding warming of more than 2C – the target set by the UK, EU and UN, since things get considerably nastier beyond that.

Noise pollution

Climate change is an overwhelming reason not to expand Heathrow. But there are severe local impacts as well. Some two million people live under the flight path into the airport. Despite individual planes getting steadily quieter, annoyance is on the increase due to the relentlessly growing number of flights.

Evidence links aircraft noise to impaired reading in schoolchildren, yet BAA seems unwilling to fund decent insulation, which it could easily do through increased landing charges. It runs a programme that provides £5 million a year for five years, but Hounslow Council estimate that to insulate the schools in their borough alone would cost in excess of £100 million.

In some schools BAA has offered double glazing, but not air conditioning, so that in summer there is a choice between stifling and being deafened.

A bad plan

The government needs to tear up its airports policy, which plans for a near tripling of the number of passengers by 2030.

If air travel were not artificially cheap (it pays no fuel tax or VAT, for instance), this demand would not exist. Instead, it is proposing to give the policy more weight by creating an ‘Independent Planning Commission’ that would rubber-stamp large projects with far less input from local people.

In these circumstances, I have every sympathy with Climate Camp protesters. What else can you do, faced with a government and an industry that will go to any lengths to push through its climate-wrecking plans?

Peter Lockley is a spokesman for AirportWatch, the umbrella group which unites the national environmental organisations and airport community groups opposed to plans to expand the aviation industry.

Further Reading

Heathrow Airport expansion plans: the case for