Sian Berry, the Green Party candidate for Mayor of London, has called on her fellow candidates to oppose all new airport runways in the south-east of England, not just at Heathrow.
Speaking at today’s rally against Heathrow’s third runway in Parliament Square, Sian added her voice to the cross-party campaign against the proposal.
She said that noise from Heathrow already seriously affects three-quarters of a million people in London, which would rise to one million if the government follows the Commission’s recommendations to put a third runway inside the M25. She added that the air around Heathrow is already polluted above legal limits, and a third runway would make that air even more toxic for 50,000 Londoners.
But Sian, who is the only professional transport campaigner among the mayoral candidates, went further than her fellow speakers. She argued that there is no way the UK can meet its climate change targets if David Cameron goes ahead with a new runway at Heathrow, Gatwick or anywhere else in the south-east of England.
She said: “We are right to stand together and say no to Heathrow expansion. But the Davies Commission and the enormous, big-spending advertising campaigns that have targeted MPs, councillors and the public, must not be allowed to convince us that some airport expansion is needed. It is not, and we would be the worst kind of NIMBYs if we let ourselves be conned by this propaganda and didn’t stand up against airport expansion at Gatwick too.”
Speaking before the rally she elaborated: “There’s a wide consensus that a third runway at Heathrow would be a terrible mistake. But where I part company with most of my fellow speakers, and with the remit given to the Davies Commission, is that I stand against not just Heathrow but all airport expansion around London. Many people argue that the runway should be built at Gatwick instead, or even that we should have a whole new airport on an artificial island in the Thames Estuary. But I don’t think we can just push our problems onto the people living around Gatwick.”
As Mayor of London, Sianwould lobby for a reformed aviation tax – as promoted by the A Free Ride campaign. This would reduce the amount paid in flight taxes by almost everyone, by giving each person one trip a year free of tax, but would charge the most frequent flyers a suitably increased rate with each extra trip. The increased attractiveness of rail vs short haul flights, and the reduction in growth of demand this would create would cut out the need for any new airport capacity and enable airports to make the most of their existing flight slots.
A new runway at Heathrow was recommended in July by the Davies Commission and is likely to get formal government support by the end of the year.
Sian Berry, who is also top of the Green Party list for the London Assembly, is the only mayoral candidate whose party opposes all airport expansion. As a roads and sustainable transport campaigner at the charity Campaign for Better Transport, she is also the only candidate for Mayor of London who is a professional transport expert.