NoTRAG's new look
Date : Sunday 15th February 2009
Unless this is your first visit to our website you will notice a very different, newspaper-style format to our pages.
New features include a NoTRAG opinion page and a letters page. A chance to read what we think and maybe see your own views on our website.
Mandelson in new "favours for friends" scandal over third runway
Date : Saturday 28th February 2009
Lord Mandelson's Heathrow PR pal, who represents BAA, appears to have been given extraordinary access to the top tiers of Government in the run-up to it's decision to give the go-ahead for a third runway.
The Daily Mail has shown that Roland Rudd, the City's most powerful PR, and members of his company Finsbury Limited, had meetings with ministers before the decision was announced:
17 Oct: Mandelson holds meeting with Rudd, whose PR firm Finsbury represents airport operator BAA.
4 Dec: Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon postpones third runway decision until January.
8 Dec: Rudd, representing Business for New Europe, and Business Minister Shriti Vadera attend the Global Europe Business Summit.
10 Dec: Rudd attends breakfast meeting with Mandelson.
12 Dec: Representative of Finsbury meets Transport Minister Lord Adonis.
16 Dec: Representative of Finsbury meets Lord Adonis again.
17 Dec: Rudd attends a second breakfast meeting with Mandelson.
15 Jan 09: Government gives go-ahead for third runway at Heathrow.
Twice disgraced but considered ideal for the House of Lords
Concerns have already been raised about BAA contact with government during the whole third runway decision process.
Names that pop up include: Lord Adonis and Mr Rudd (who had worked together on the Financial Times newspaper) and Lord Mandelson (who is godfather to one of Rudd's children and has joined him to share the hospitality of Oleg Deripaska).
Also Tom Kelly (the official spokesman for PM Tony Blair, now BAA's communications director) and Joe Irvin (former head of corporate affairs at BAA, now a key adviser to Gordon Brown).
Finsbury told The Daily Mail that Mr Rudd had 'categorically never' discussed Heathrow expansion with Lord Mandelson. It also said its representatives met Lord Adonis on December 12 and 16 to discuss 'high-speed rail'.
Since the government had never mentioned investing in high-speed rail until the Conservatives proposed it as an alternative to a third runway, it is bizarre that any discussion of high-speed rail would not include reference to Heathrow expansion.
Bmi to close "unsustainable" domestic services
Date : Friday 20th February 2009
Bmi is to end its service to Heathrow from Leeds/Brandford and Durham Tees Valley on March 28.
The new summer schedule also cuts frequency on European short haul routes between Heathrow and Amsterdam to four a day and the Heathrow-Dublin service down to six a day.
A statement from Bmi said:“The decision to withdraw services between London and the North of England was a tough one, as we have operated these routes since 1969. However a decline in demand, higher-than-inflation cost increases at Heathrow and higher government Air Passenger Duty (APD) charges have made operating these routes unsustainable.”
The airline is also reducing flights to Addis Ababa to three a week while services to Beirut and Amman rise to ten a week each from May 22.
Westminster Protest : Third runway - No Way!
Date : Thursday 19th February 2009
Around 150 protesters took part in a protest outside Downing Street to tell Gordon Brown what they thought of his plans for a third runway.
NoTRAG members make their views known
Speakers included John McDonnell MP and NoTRAG Secretary Linda McCutcheon. Linda (63) has spent over 40 years in Sipson and would lose her home if a third runway is built. She told the crowd, "Mr Brown is not going to do this to us. We will fight to the bitter end. We will carry on and we will win."
Brown won't cheer up until the sky is full
A Guardian blog drew attention to a counter demonstration that had been arranged by a new group supporting airport expansion and seeking to encourage cheap air travel, even at the expense of the environment.
BBC News coverage showed as few as a dozen "Modern Movement" protesters. One banner strangely declared: "I want to live in the modern world", as if anti-runway campaigners were calling for an end to powered flight. Very unimpressive. Even more so when rumours reached NoTRAG that their meagre numbers were swelled by infiltraters from the anti-runway camp checking out the opposition!
TV WATCH - BBC1's Inside Out programme
Date : Wednesday 11th February 2009
TV WATCH - BBC1's Inside Out programme on Wednesday 11th February included a report about Sipson, which has sparked some lively debate. Take a look at our new Opinion page and see the report, only shown in the London area, on the BBC website.
A GOOD READ - Hunt down a copy of February's SAGA Magazine. You'll be rewarded with a fascinating article about how life was lived by farm workers a couple of generations ago. It is linked to a BBC series on Victorian farming but is actually the story of 97-year-old Jack Clarke, the oldest resident in Sipson. The journalist who wrote the article, Robert Cheshyre, first met Jack when reporting on the proposed destruction of Sipson for the Telegraph Magazine last year. Jack is still going strong and his memories deserve a wide audience.
The Stables ....
NoTRAG Archive - February 2009
View the previous NoTRAG website .......
....... which details events in the years before the Government made the wrong decision on Thursday 15th January 2009 regarding a Third Runway at Heathrow Airport.
Read about who said what and when!
Independent Parliamentary Body undermines the case for Heathrow expansion
Date : Sunday 8th February 2009
Research from the strictly impartial House of Commons Library, published this month, openly casts doubt on the Government’s environmental and economic case for expansion.
For example, when Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon gave the green light for a third runway last month he said only low emission planes would be allowed to use the new runway. But the House of Commons researchers found that “aircraft designs do not at the moment incorporate many of the features highlighted by the secretary of state” and adds “unless there are some very rapid improvements in technology, it will be some time before more environmentally friendly commercial aircraft are in widespread operation.”
The economic case looks just as shaky. The House of Commons research says that the Department of Transport's estimate of £8.2 billion worth of benefits to the economy over 70 years "does not account for various factors" that could slash the benefitsto £1.5 billion or less.
This new research confirms what anti-runway campaigners have been saying for years. Geraldine Nicholson, Chair of NoTRAG (No Third Runway Action Group), said: “The House of Commons Library researchers are confirming what we have always known, Geoff Hoon’s ‘green planes’ don’t exist. How much more misery should local people be required to go through before the Government admits that its plans for a third runway are pure fantasy?”
HACAN Chair John Stewart said, “A Prime Minister who is showering billions of pounds on the banks is willing to give the go-ahead to a third runway at Heathrow, which may just bring in a little over £1 billion over 70 years. This is the economics of the madhouse.”
You have to wonder how long Government Ministers can keep ignoring everything put in front of them. The Environment Agency, Sustainable Development Commission, 2M Group of local authorities, the Mayor of London, the Greater London Assembly, the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative Party and just about every environmental group of any note has told Gordon Brown that Heathrow expansion should not go ahead.
If Jeremy Clarkson was politically incorrect to say that Gordon Brown was one-eyed, we must resist the temptation to call Gordon Brown deaf. However, you have to wonder what affliction our Prime Minister suffers from that prevents him seeing what is obvious to everyone - even, we suspect, the aviation industry; A third runway at Heathrow would be disastrous for the country.
The blame game - it's snow predictable!
Date : Friday 6th February 2009
When Britain was buried under the deepest snow for 18 years on 2nd February, NoTRAG joked on this page that Willie Walsh had not yet appeared on TV to blame the flight cancellations on a third runway. The aviation industry is so predictable!
With snowploughs struggling to clear Heathrow's runways, 868 inbound and outbound flights from the airport were cancelled on Monday, including all those slot-hogging short-haul flights. A further 173 flights were pulled on the Tuesday.
Three runways - a third more delayed passengers?
Stopping short of blaming the lack of a third runway for the snow itself, The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) told Travel Weekly (6th February) that it believed the situation at the airport "will be largely avoided in future once the third runway has been built".
A spokesman said: "This week's snow brings us back to the issue of capacity. Every time you have a large number of cancellations because of different issues (at Heathrow airport) you get a knock-on effect. Obviously if you had a third runway any backlogs could be cleared quicker."
Using that argument, London's Mayor should build more roads to cope with any backlog of bus passengers!
MPs Alan and Ann Keen under fire for not supporting their constituents
Date : Friday 6th February 2009
People living in West London may finally have had enough of Alan and Ann Keen, the married MPs who represent Feltham and Heston and Brentford and Isleworth.
Alan Keen, MP
During the debate in Parliament on 28th January, Alan Keen MP astonishingly claimed that a third runway "will hardly affect my constituents at all". He said he would not support the motion, which called for a re-think on the runway, because the government had given way on mixed mode.
Mr Keen accused the Conservatives of "party politicking" as they had not smiled when Geoff Hoon announced that the government would not go ahead with mixed mode. Has there ever been a more feeble excuse for disregarding the interests of your constituents? Justine Greening MP pointed out that such promises could not be trusted as all previous promises had been broken.
Despite strong concerns about local pollution, Ann Keen MP also supported a third runway by voting with the government, which has led to calls for her to resign as junior health minister.
Ann Keen, MP
Mrs Keen also made headlines for being the first MP to be sued by constituent for "laziness".
War veteran John Taylor claimed that his MP repeatedly ignored his claims for help. Having originally been ordered to pay Mr Taylor £15,000 by Brentford County Court in December after failing to contest the case within the time limit, Mrs Keen's lawyers have appealed the decision. The hearing is scheduled for April 29.
Constituents are still seething after the revelations in May 2008 that Mr and Mrs Keen financed their London flat with £175,000 of taxpayers' money, even though they only live 30 minutes from Parliament.
Documents obtained under the freedom of information act after a three-year battle, showed that the couple had each submitted long lists of expenses without a single receipt. Some of the rules have since been changed to prevent the financial manoevering that permitted such claims.
Voters should ask themselves whose interests these two MPs are serving?
Snow brings peace to people around Heathrow
Date : Monday 2nd February 2009
They say it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Certainly the Siberian wind that brought snow to Britain on 2nd February brought some welcome peace to people living around Heathrow.
While the country ground to a standstill under the heaviest snowfall for 18 years, Heathrow's runways were closed while snowploughs attempted to clear a pathway for jets to land.
One Cyprus Airways flight managed to land at 0820 GMT but snow and ice led to the aircraft coming off the taxiway and getting its front wheel lodged in the grass.
Then short-haul flights, previously considered so important by BAA, were all cancelled. Funny how those so-called essential journeys no longer needed to me made from Heathrow.
Unusually, Willie Walsh did not pop up on TV to blame the problems on a lack of a third runway.
For most of the day, instead of aircraft screaming overhead, the peace and quiet was only broken by a few children squealing with delight at the unexpected opportunity to have snowball fights and make snowmen.
This is what life was like before Heathrow was allowed to blight lives with almost constant noise. Let's hope that all those people stuck at airports had time to ask themselves if their journey was improving anyone's quality of life.