Illustration by Aniela Murphy.
Airplot is the name by which Greenpeace’s campaign to prevent Heathrow’s third runway from being built is known and is a piece of land near the endangered village of Sipson upon which great schemes are hatched to thwart and confound the BAA in their mission to destroy and expand. Anna Jones has been with Greenpeace, campaigning against airport expansion, for the past three years.
Could you give us a bit of background on the project? How did it all begin?
In about Spring 2008 we decided to try and buy a bit of the runway, essentially, to be able to take direct action and put ourselves in the way of the plans. It was quite a tall order to do that under the radar, as it were, top secretly. We were worried that BAA might find out and try and buy the bit before we got there. We spent quite a few months trying to find a piece of land that we could buy and in January 2009 we managed to pull it off and announced it to the world a couple of days before the government announced it was going to support the third runway. We knew all along that the government was going to support the runway because it had basically been a stitch up from the beginning, so they had said in 2003 that they wanted the runway to happen. Greenpeace and other groups did a lot to highlight the collusion that went on between the Department of Transport and BAA to fix the figures to try and argue that expansion wouldn’t create any more air or noise pollution. The key thing was that they didn’t really mention climate change; they thought as they were dealing with climate change through the climate emissions scheme theat they didn’t really need to worry about it, and that it was all fine. But of course, we all knew that it’s not all fine, and the new runway would massively undermine our ability to meet our climate change targets.
When we launched Airplot, we made it possible for anyone and everyone around the world to become an owner of the land. Now there are over 80,000 people signed up to become beneficial owners of the land, and we’re hoping to take this number up to 100,000 by the beginning of May. Our aim is, once the new government comes to power after the election, we’ll slap the deeds on their desk and show them the level of opposition, which will continue if they don’t drop the plans.
The recent high court decision that the airport expansion needs to be reviewed must’ve really helped.
That’s what we’ve been arguing all along; that they weren’t properly considering climate change. We had to take them to court to prove that and the judge ruled that the government hadn’t properly considered the climate change act when they were considering the third runway. Now they need to go back and do a whole review of their whole aviation policy of which the third runaway is a big part, and make sure that it’s in line with the climate change act. It’s a massive step-forward for the campaign but also hugely significant for climate change law & climate change policy.
Illustration by Aniela Murphy.
How much danger is the village of Sipson in, at the moment?
A great deal of danger! The whole village would be completely destroyed.
How are the government defending that? What are they suggesting the villagers do?
They’re shying away from it. People are going to have to find their own way. What’s worrying is that BAA have already started buying people’s houses, which shows that they are going to do whatever they can to try and get their runway. Up at Stanstead, where they were pushing for a second runway, they had been buying up properties in the area that they wanted to build the runway, despite the fact that they didn’t even have planning permission for it, so they’re a really underhand company who think they’re going to get their way by bullying people. They’re just going to bulldoze through people’s lives, essentially. It’s very tense in Sipson, it’s been a long time for people to be living with the threat of the runway, seven or eight years now, so it’s a really difficult situation for the residents, but there’s an incredible bunch of people down there who’ve been fighting all the way, and we’ve been joining with them, and all the other groups who’ve been involved in the coalition over the last couple of years. By joining together we’ve become a lot more powerful and are really looking like we’re going to win the campaign now, so it’s difficult but everyone’s feeling very confident that we’ll get there in the end.
On the website, you encourage people to really get involved with “astonishing actions“; what have people been getting up to?
People have been climbing mountains and putting the Airplot flag on top of them, Plane Stupid do bold actions where they break into airports and stop planes from taking off. Greenpeace activists got onto a plane at Heathrow and stopped a short-haul flight from going to Manchester. Not everyone wants to take direct action though, so people around the country have been baking cakes & planting trees and encouraging their MPs to become beneficial owners. We now have nearly 100 MPs who are beneficial owners of the land. Each of the trees in the orchard, that we planted in November last year on the land, have been adopted by different parts of the coalition, including MPs from all the four main parties – Labour, Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and The Green party- including David Cameron. Nick Clegg came down to plant his tree on behalf of the Liberal Democrats as well.
You describe the orchard, and the allotment, as ‘putting roots down’ in an action directly and symbolically opposed to the destruction BAA is prepared to wreak…It also meant you got to meet Richard Briers from The Good Life…
Yeah, he’s come down a couple of times. He came down to help create the allotment, as, obviously, he’s a champion of growing-it-yourself. He also came down to plant the orchard, and that was a good day. We had the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy down as well, who’s written a poem about the area which Alison Steadman read on the day – which you can see in the video on the main Airplot site – and Nick Clegg came that day as well. We’ve had some really great support from well-known people who are really passionate about the campaign. A lot of them live in West London as well, so they’re affected by the noise, and worry about the other consequences of the third runway too.
Have you sent veg from the allotment to every MP?
We just planted a load more; a lot of the villagers helped themselves to the veg last year, which was great, they were making soups and dishes for each other. We’ll be continuing to plant stuff in the allotment and get the produce to the next government.
With all the MPs who have trees in the orchard, do you think that if the Liberal Democrats or Conservatives get into power, they’ll take the campaign seriously?
Yep, I think so, we hope so! They’ve said pretty categorically that they won’t allow it and they’ll have to come and dig up their trees if they want to go ahead! So hopefully they’ll stick to their word. Governments have u-turned in the past, so we’ll have to keep up the pressure so that if they were to come to power they can’t go back on their promise and if Labour do get back into power, then we’ll be doing what we can to change their minds. I think we’ve got a really long way ahead in the campaign to the point where we do have the Tories & Liberal Democrats opposed to the expansion and the legal ruling on our side. We’re feeling very confident that we’re going to win, but we’re definitely not there yet and that’s why we want to get to 100,000 by the beginning of May to show that strength of grassroots power and public power across the country, and the world.
Illustration of Anna Jones by Aniela Murphy.
How has the recent eruption of Eyjafjallajökull helped the project, aside from achieving the elusive goal of every environmental activist and grounding all Britain’s planes!
Well, it was a pretty amazing week, and a lot of people who were affected by the noise had a bit of a respite. Emissions will definitely have gone down in that time because millions on tonnes of CO2 go into the air from aviation. It also helped encourage debate about whether we’re too dependant on aviation for moving things around. People were realising that we can slow down a bit, it is possible, and we can make journeys by alternative means. What we’ve been arguing all along is that short haul flights shouldn’t be going at all when we’re able to take the train. There are loads of destinations that Heathrow is going to which are under 500 km which you can easily get to by train. I think its given people a different perspective and shown that we can make those journeys, we don’t have to fly. It’s highlighted the dual aspect of the project then; not just grounding planes but thinking about alternative means of travel and energy use… Greenpeace is always about championing solutions & alternatives as well as highlighting the things that are wrong and need to be stopped. A lot of our work on climate change is about energy and trying to move away from fuel-based energy systems, and reducing the amount of energy we use to begin with as well as improving energy efficiency and looking at renewable energy. That goes for transport as well; we’re talking about using alternatives and instead of flying somewhere, taking the train somewhere. Ultimately, we need to be thinking about whether we need to take those longer flights or how many we need to take. We need to be reducing the amount of miles that we’re travelling.
What are your thoughts on the solar planes in development, and other renewable energy technologies which are being researched in regards to the aviation industry?
It’s really interesting to see that happening, and obviously, if we can find those solutions that’s great, but what we’re worried about is the industry saying that we’re going to use biofuels and solar planes so we don’t need to worry and we can keep expanding now. The problem is that we can’t expand in the meantime because that’s still using oil and pumping emissions out into the atmosphere. We can’t see that as an excuse for expanding. We need to stop the expansion programme, see whether those alternatives are really viable. We have some concerns particularly about biofuels, as they’re linked to rainforest destruction and there isn’t clear evidence that they do reduce emissions. Ultimately, if we do find an alternative that really does work, then fantastic, but we’re very concerned about the industry using that as greenwash.
What else is going on down at the Airplot at the moment? Are there any more events planned for the future?
Potentially, if we keep up the pressure. We’ve been running a competition to design a fortress from the Airplot, which we’ll be judging in a month or so. There’s an exhibition happening at the beginning of June down at OXO which will showcase the winning designs. So if we have to we’re prepared to build a structure to enable us to take direct action, but hopefully we’ll win before then, so we won’t have to build it. We’re preparing for that stage now, in case we have to take direct action. The exhibition will be around the 2-6th June at OXO Barge Gallery.
There’s only a week left to go to grab a bit of the plot and become a beneficial owner before the start of May, so head over to the Airplot website for your own piece of the action, and don’t forget to spread the word among your friends too. It only takes a moment to fill in your details and read up on the legal ramifications of being a beneficial owner which I’m sure includes the right to play in a fort!
Tags:
Airplot, Aniela Murphy, Anna Jones, baa, Election, Greenpeace, heathrow, MPs, Nick Clegg, Orchard, sipson
