UK Group Makes Life Hell for Airport Expansion Proponants

Planestupid

For years, environmental groups have been doing everything they can to prevent airport expansion in the UK -– interrupting meetings, staging flash mobs, blockading runways, and buying up land. But there's one group in particular that's been consistently making life miserable for those who support more flights and larger airports.

Plane Stupid, an umbrella organization of UK advocacy groups formed in 2005, has coordinated and staged scores of events protesting proposed expansion of UK airports. In an interview with Wired.com, Plane Stupid's co-founder Richard George said his group believes that airport expansion will result in severe environmental damage, health problems, noise pollution, and destruction of endangered wildlife and heritage sites. Number one on the group's agenda has been fighting the planned construction of a third runway at London's Heathrow Airport, which last month received approval from the UK government, despite Plane Stupid's best efforts.

Since its founding, the groups that make up Plane Stupid staged an ongoing series of creative, media-grabbing protests. In October, a Scottish group targeted a government minister by setting up a stereo in front of his house at 4am and blaring airplane noise through his front door at 110 decibels. This summer a protester attempted to crazy-glue himself to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a way to force a dialogue. Under the auspicious of Plane Stupid, groups have draped signs from the roof of Parliament, blockaded the entrance to British Airways' headquarters, set up camp under airplane wings, dressed up like penguins, and inflated a giant elephant at a meeting of transportation ministers.

But George says that of all the protests staged by his group, its Stansted shutdown
was most successful. In that action, 57 protesters camped out on a
runway at the London-area airport, shutting it down for over four hours
and forcing the cancellation of more than 50 flights. "Like Heathrow,
Stansted is trying to expand massively," he says of the protest. "And
like Heathrow, an entire community will be devastated if it is allowed
to do so."

While it's the high-profile actions like this that garner the most
media attention, George says that Plane Stupid's most important work
happens behind the scenes. "We've persuaded local residents who feel
abandoned by the government and the political process that they can win
the battle," he says. "We've opened their eyes to the use of direction
action and to defending their homes from the BAA [British Airports
Authority].

George says that while Plane Stupid's actions are motivated in large
part by aviation's environmental impact, there are other motivations as
well. "Around the country airport expansion threatens ancient woodland,
historical buildings and monuments, and will wipe out schools," he told
us. "It will also increase asthma rates and other respiratory
illnesses. Any one of these effects ought to make a sane person think
twice about aviation expansion."

Despite Plane Stupid's best efforts, the UK government last month passed legislation
authorizing construction of a third runway at Heathrow. George claims
that rather than discouraging activists, the setback has galvanized
them. "We're moving to Sipson and we aren't leaving," he says,
referring to the village that sits in the path of the proposed third
runway. "They [the UK government] have radicalized a generation. The
new runway will never, ever get built."

Photo: Flickr/London Permaculture

See also:

Flash mob at opening of Heathrow T5

Protesters chain themselves together at Manchester Airport to protest short-haul flights