Carry on Consulting

More Tents Moments at Heathrow - and T5 hadn't even opened!

Blow me - it's Clive Soley!

You have to give it to Clive Soley of BAA's mouthpiece Future Heathrow, he doesn’t mind looking a fool; the chap must have a cracking sense of humour. There he was, still banging on about expanding Heathrow and how it is losing out to foreign rivals, while BAA’s broken baggage system at T4 was causing more snaking queues. The sad saps should have known they'd bought a ticket for the latest tourist attraction, the “Heathrow Hell” experience - hours spent hunched over a trolley in a makeshift tent with no comfy seats, no useful information and no check-in luggage allowed.

Clive, maybe the passengers are taking their business to other airports because they want their bags at their destination, not turning up three weeks’ later when they’ve wasted their trip hunting for substitute gear. No doubt Clive has never had to turn up at a wedding minus his slingbacks.

A Press Release – that Escaped?

Clive’s arguments are looking weaker than an in-flight cuppa. After desperately trying to convince us that toxic pollution would induce kamikaze tourists to descend on Heathrow and deliriously offload their cash, he must have wondered how to react to the Economic Report commissioned by HACAN. Seems his chosen method was to ignore the solid economic arguments against expansion (easy if you haven’t read it) and go for some simple HACAN-bashing and a few choice quotes.

The original press release soon hit the waste bins of most discerning reporters but we’ve seen, what looks like, an unedited first draft. (Tee hee!)

It’s a Carry on Consulting exclusive! ...... just for you

Soley ducks, Ellis dives

With so much support gathering for the anti-expansion campaigners, little wonder Clive Soley was otherwise engaged on 21st February and left BA’s Paul Ellis to face residents at a public meeting in Slough. One Speaker, our own Geraldine Nicholson, proved that spending your Christmas reading DfT technical data was time well spent; highly-paid Mr Ellis must have wished he’d taken more notice at his briefing. He didn’t make matters any better by stating that people forced from their homes would get “generous compensation”. Unlucky for Ellis, a Sipson homeowner was in the audience and knew considerably more about the BAA property bond than he did.

The lady’s furious response thankfully included only one swear word!

The Dft Consultation had all the makings of a farce:

a document (ANASE) buried, uncovered then (after pressure) slyly revealed (on the internet) but considered an embarrassment (it didn't give the findings that the DfT hoped); two main characters (Dft and BAA) caught in bed together at secret meetings; then the "pillow talk" exposed by a fiesty young blonde (Justine Greening MP) determined to uncover the truth.

Photograph by kind permission of PLANE STUPID

Then you had a leading man (Gordon "I'm pretending to be Green" Brown), described by Lib Dem Vince Cable as turning from Stalin to Mr Bean, and a ditsy leading lady (Secretary of State for Transport, Ruth-less Kelly), who thought that people living near Heathrow had benefited from aviation technology!! What a double act!

Add to that a supporting cast of comedians (civil servants) whose plan for displaced families during a housing shortage is.....to have NO plan and blame the mess on some Johnny Foreigners (Spanish-owned BAA). They seduced the hapless Bean (oops Brown) with the promise that Britain could lead the world - in The Most Polluted Countries League.

Even when reports of "Heathrow Hell" proved BAA couldn't cope with their current workload, they convinced Mr Bean that they'd handle things better if their workload was doubled.

So, although Mr Bean had to "con"sult people on what they thought, he told them that he'd made up his mind already because his Spanish friends have a crystal ball. There was also Mr Magic, the scientist, who had plans for zero-pollution transport and, if that didn't work, Bean had his eyes shut and fingers crossed too.

BAA isn't worried that it has to pay off billions of pounds of debt before shareholders see a penny. After all, Bean will make sure British taxpayers foot the bill when the sums don't add up. It worked for Northern Rock.

Anyway, by then, Bean and Kelly plan to have sneaked off to draw their generous pensions. No wonder they aren't interested in global warming.

Seems the "con" sultation only wants to know how much noise and air pollution Joe Public will tolerate to secure some toilet cleaner jobs for their grandchildren.

Call that a Consultation? What a Carry On!

British Airways Executive's past comments catch up with him

Don't ya just hate it when someone makes an outrageous comment that affects you but you have no opportunity to confront them?

Wouldn't ya just love to tell that person what you think? It rarely happens but Geraldine Nicholson, Chair of NoTRAG, got her chance at the HACAN Alternative Consultation on 16th January.

HACAN's conference room was situated just across the corridor from the DfT Consultation in the Sheraton Hotel, Colnbrook. As usual, everything was good natured and the close proximity of the two events enabled those manning the exhibitions to have a peek at the opposition from time to time. Certainly, the events seemed well attended and many residents had obviously been reading up over the Christmas break.

Just before packing up at 8pm, a group of people had gathered at the HACAN exhibition and were discussing the use of "ghost" flights, empty planes flown just to keep slots open. A man with an armful of response questionnaires, began to dispute what was being said. Apparently, British Airways never fly empty aircraft for this purpose. As he began to pontificate on the need for Heathrow expansion, Geraldine recognised the man as Paul Ellis, General Manager Infrastructure Policy at BA. Urban myth has it that he is spurred on by a map of a massively extended Heathrow on the back of his office door.

Mr Ellis had certainly been on TV suggesting a FOURTH runway at Heathrow! Of course, Geraldine couldn't resist asking him about his keeness for expansion - and Mr Ellis was happy to say that he wouldn't rule anything out including runway four and T7! As a "local" person, he could see nothing wrong with knocking down houses and a school because the council would rebuild these.

Oh dear, Mr Ellis was starting to show his ignorance. Not only are there no plans to build houses or schools to replace those destroyed (there is already a shortage of both in the area) but most of the residents affected by expansion will not be in any compensation schemes. Mr Ellis also seems to assume that Sipson residents could take BAA's money and start a new life somewhere else. This didn't go down well with the NoTRAG secretary, whose 84-year-old mother has no desire to be uprooted and would like to keep her old life, thank you.

Seems Mr Ellis isn't local enough to have been to the Heathrow villages area lately - or perhaps he's been too busy filling out all those response forms.

Maybe a visit would enlighten him on the areas being devastated but, like the members of a firing squad who don't want to look into their victim's eyes before they pull the trigger, it can't be easy to find yourself facing the people whose community you are trying to wipe out!