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Council joins group against Heathrow expansion
11:25am Monday 14th April 2008
A COUNCIL has joined a group opposed to the expansion of Heathrow airport.
Lewisham Council has joined the 2M group, an alliance of local authorities concerned at the environmental impact of expansion.
The group, which took its name from the 2 million residents of its original 12 local authorities, now represents a combined population of 4 million people, after three other councils also joined.
Consultation on Department for Transport proposals for a third runway and increased use of the two existing runways closed on February 27.
But the group claims the proposals would increase flights from the current number of 480,000 to around 702,000 by 2030.
Fears have bee raised the plans may also see Greenwich, Blackheath and Deptford directly under flight paths.
Mayor of Lewisham Sir Steve Bullock said: "It's become clear that the impact of further growth at Heathrow significantly affects our residents.
"As I understand it there is the potential to create a very significant increase in aircraft over Lewisham and Greenwich.
"I think many of us at town hall have quite serious reservations about Heathrow's growth and its effect environmentally.
"I'm not remotely an expert on airport policy but it seems to me the argument being made by a number of people is that Heathrow is in the wrong place and having planes flying across the city to get there is problematic."
Sir Steve said he would back a recent proposal by Greenwich and Woolwich MP Nick Raynsford to build a new airport in the Thames estuary.
Greenwich Council has said it also intends to join the group.
Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly is expected to announce her decision on the proposals in the early summer.
Greenwich and Lewisham Friends of the Earth member Dominic Clarke said he welcomed the council's decision.
He said: "The 2M group is one amongst many groups and individuals opposing the expansion of Heathrow.
"Greenwich and Lewisham Friends of the Earth is opposed to expansion of Heathrow since it will cause amongst other negative effects massive increases in greenhouse gas emissions and noise, particularly in South London."
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DavidW, Plumstead says...
4:12pm Mon 14 Apr 08
Cllr Sue Luxton, Ladywell, Lewisham says...
4:26pm Mon 14 Apr 08
This isn't about political correctness - we haven't been asked to respond to a government consultation on China and India's emissions, we were invited to respond to a consultation on the expansion of Heathrow.
China and India's per capita emissions are a fraction of ours - if everyone in India and China started flying as often as Westerners do we, we would really be up the creek.
cat, orpington says...
5:51pm Mon 14 Apr 08
phone masts are the same they don't want them near them but they all have a mobile phone
DavidW, Plumstead says...
8:26am Tue 15 Apr 08
As for the 'per capita' thing, it's a statistical smoke screen, because China and India are two of the major contributers to industrial global pollution, which includes all the green house gases they create, and unless polititians (like yourself)can encourage any change there, then any efforts made by this small island, let alone a borough council in London, will be quite futile in its effect!
PS what exactly is a 'Westerner', is it a political term?
A, south London says...
10:21am Tue 15 Apr 08
The 'per capita' emissions thing is no smokescreen. While the increase in Chinese and Indian emissions is deeply worrying, it should still be acknowledged that developed world lifestyles mean we in countries like the UK and the US are responsible, per capita (total emissions divided by population - not the emissions-directly-a
ttributable-to-indiv
iduals that you seem to think per capita means) for far more than Chinese or Indian people. Long-term the equitable thing to stave off disastrous climate change will be to figure out what a safe level of global emissions is and to allot each country an equal amount proportional to its population.
Finally, your jibe at Cllr Luxton about not flying ever again is off the point. The responsibility of each individual is to do realistically what they can to reduce their individual carbon footprint while pressing the government to make those changes easier for us. That doesn't mean cutting out all flights forever, but it does mean not taking multiple leisure flights each year.
A, south London says...
10:25am Tue 15 Apr 08
Cllr Sue Luxton, Ladywell, Lewisham says...
11:35am Tue 15 Apr 08
DavidW & cat
For the record, I haven't flown anywhere in a couple of years. I'm not saying I'm never ever going to fly again and I'm not asking anyone else to pledge that either - there are still plenty of places in the world I'd like to visit one day, but I've made a conscious decision to fly less and as far as possible, avoid it. My last couple of holidays abroad were to Barcelona, when I took the Eurostar to Paris then an overnight train. No hassle, no lengthy queues for check ins, no lost baggage, arrived first thing in the morning after a good night's sleep. Much less stressful than the plane to be honest, I'd recommend it.
As for Council junkets , DavidW - if only! The Mayor did go on a visit to South Africa last year, which caused some controversy, but I'm not aware of any other Lewisham councillors flying anywhere at Council expense or on Council business, and certainly not backbench opposition ones like myself! I don't think the 'ever increasing Council junkets' comment is grounded in reality as far as Lewisham is concerned, or if it is, then I'm missing out!
DavidW, Plumstead says...
12:36pm Tue 15 Apr 08
As for the increased noise - how low do you think these planes are going to fly over Lewisham and what makes you think that Lewisham would be significantly under the flight path anyway?
A, says...
2:19pm Tue 15 Apr 08
Re Lewisham: parts of it already are significantly under the flightpath and the expansion plans would be likely to increase this. There is a major holding stack over Blackheath / Greenwich / Shooters Hill for planes waiting to land at Heathrow.
Re China / India: I don't deny the importance of getting them to develop in a cleaner way and limit their emissions - it's absolutely essential, and I said above it's 'deeply worrying'. But international efforts to secure such commitments from them and others must be done in parallel with our best efforts domestically here to reduce our own footprint. We have developed our economies on dirty fossil fuels since year dot, and it's not surprising they now claim the right to do so, too. We should be showing how economies can be run cleanly with renewables at their heart, both to reduce our own emissions and to act as an example to developing nations that ditching fossil fuels is possible and desirable.
Finally, I think i'm having to repeat myself here but the per capita stats are not twisted, they are deeply relevant from the point of view of equity. If China and India emitted / consumed as much as developed world nations do proportional to population, we would need many more planets'-worth of resources. How can we ask them to cut back when we are already consuming and emitting more per person? We have to take responsibility in order to persuade China and India to do so.
You dismiss per capita emissions as if they're totally irrelevant. On that basis, China should be emitting the same as Belgium just because they're both states. It makes no sense. Of course population and proportionality should come into the equation.
DavidW, Plumstead says...
4:15pm Tue 15 Apr 08
Can't do nothing about history or the technology that was employed at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but tends to make itself apparent too late, so that's a bit of mute point of yours.
Per Capita isn't irrelivant, its just over exaggerated by green groups and bares no comparison to the vast volumes of carbon emissions being produced elsewhere in the world. The 'green' organisation prefer to concentrate on this smaller issues such as this, rather than challange the real culprits, in the same way that it's easier to beat the dog that won't bite, than the dog which will. So proportion / person doesn't really hold much water in comparison.
Sunny, London says...
4:39pm Tue 15 Apr 08
China does not see why they should change their ways wiht regards to contributing (a lot of) pollution as they are merely copying the Western World and are many years behind catching up with the amount we have 'churned out'. They feel they have the right to keep 'chuking' the 'stuff' out as they have a lot of catching up to do with the WEST. They have 2 new power stations installed every week!!Madness isn't it???!!!
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Cllr Sue Luxton, Ladywell, Lewisham says...
3:06pm Mon 14 Apr 08
But I am astonished at Bullock's support for Tory Boris Johnson's plan for a new airport in the Thames Estuary, an idea slammed by Bullock's Labour colleague Ken Livingstone as "exactly the wrong policy to reduce carbon emissions or protect natural habitats".
Labour's position on this is far from clear. Use your peach ballot paper to elect more Greens to the London Assembly on May 1 to hold Labour to manifesto pledges on transport and climate change.
Readers may wish to attend a public meeting organised by HACAN on Wednesday 23 April, 7.30pm, at Blackheath Halls, to discuss their concerns over Heathrow expansion.
Cllr Sue Luxton
Green Party candidate for Greenwich & Lewisham London Assembly Constituency