Forum Topic

Third Heathrow runway poll

Two-thirds of Brentford and Isleworth residents are opposed to Heathrow Runway 3 according to the Mary Cadbury poll. Why then does Hounslow council refuse to oppose it when their raison d'être is to act in the best interests of the residents?Come on Hounsolw council, get some backbone and do the right thing.

Lorne Gifford ● 3242d16 Comments

What a funny set of reasons we’re being given to justify today's Heathrow runway decision. Economic benefits, connectivity, supporting exports, trade and job opportunities all apply equally well to any airport.  The overriding argument that it’s essential for the country’s economic development actually favours Gatwick, Luton, or indeed anywhere else.  Picking Heathrow is basically saying, ‘since we must have more airport capacity and can’t prevaricate any longer, we’ve decided to put it somewhere where it’ll face so much protest, disruption and delays that it’s by far the slowest possible way of doing it’. It’s a self-defeating reason.Just the illegal level of pollution that our MP pointed out this afternoon is a complete roadblock to building a runway in any conceivable timeframe. And putting a thousand flights a day over the heads of a third of a million people is guaranteed to bring in dozens of interesting legal challenges from all those lawyers that now have the prospect of 5.30 alarm calls.In all the arguments, reasons and documents I’ve seen, the only Heathrow specific point I can find is from the Airports Commission report, where it says Heathrow is for business people and Gatwick is for tourists.  Not very convincing since a new runway at Gatwick will have a new terminal and it would be easy to call it ‘Gatwick Businessmen only terminal’ if those in suits object to pushing past those in shorts. From personal experience, Gatwick is actually a far better business airport than Heathrow. More domestic flight transfers, decent train service and a lot easier and cheaper to park a car at.So, with the illegal level of pollution that’s being promised I hope the Hounslow Council Environmental Department will be objecting very vocally now.  And since the Environment Department is also the Property Development Department I hope they’ll tell themselves that they can no longer approve any new developments in Brentford as it will only add to the pollution.Come on Hounslow, we all know you read the local web site forums, so let's hear from you.

Lorne Gifford ● 3209d

I recall Hounslow council sending surveys to all households some years ago. Possibly lots of people just binned them!

Steve Taylor ● 3210d

With you brother. I've never been randomly canvassed on any survey of any kind, ever. Suspicious.

Mike Paterson ● 3210d

Nobody asked me I am all for it lets get that runway built

Robert Ayres ● 3221d

And as someone who works in the development of other types of large infrastructure projects I know the value of time. Give a building developer the option of guaranteed profit now or the possibly of higher profit a year later and they'll take the former every time. Anyway, the behaviour isn't unreasonable when you've got the Local Plan as a basis for your decision since it waxes lyrically about context and history.

Lorne Gifford ● 3223d

Err, no, because then the Council runs the risk of getting costs awarded against it for unreasonable behaviour, and those costs have to be paid for from somewhere, so we'll end up with the same developments you don't like but also be more out of pocket and/or experiencing poorer service from the LPA.  The mere fact that you're disagreeing with me, someone who used to work for the Council whilst living in Brentford and works as a planning consultant whilst living in Brentford (where I've lived for over 14 years now) shows that what you're suggesting doesn't actually work in practice ;-)

Adam Beamish ● 3223d

Adam, that's absolutely perfect.  The developer can wait the year or so it takes for their overheight and oversized development to possibly be independently approved or they can have fast local approval for something appropriate that fits in with the context and size of Brentford.We'd very quickly end up with a town that even council top management would be happy to live in.

Lorne Gifford ● 3223d

It's not discriminating on the basis of race, religion, age, sex or any of the discrimination laws I'm aware of.  It's also rather a fundamental requirement for a senior role in a local council that you should understand the locality. We're moving from the original question though, which is why hasn't Hounslow council stood up and done what the majority of residents want and speak out against a third Heathrow runway.  Ruth Cadbury (got her name right this time) took the results of her poll to the door of No 10, residents protest outside the conservative conference, and what does the local council do? Two of them dress up as pilots and sit in a pretend cockpit at a building developers show in the South of France and say Hounslow is open for business.

Lorne Gifford ● 3223d

It is totally pie in the sky, at the end of the day the relevant regulations and legislation that apply to most areas of local authority work apply at national level, no local level, so it's nonsense to suggest the people employed to act utilising those regulations and legislation must be local.Obviously I understand the sentiment, but conversely the argument can be made that the closer someone is to a location, the more blinkered they become.And what happens when your Brentford born and bred Planning Officer refuses a scheme and then the developer appeals to the Planning Inspectorate ? - the Inspectorate appoint a completely random Inspector from their pool of Inspectors, being careful not to choose one that is based locally, and that Inspector ultimately approves or refuses the scheme.

Adam Beamish ● 3224d

I think you'd find 'ring-fencing' people for jobs is against the law, you simply would not be allowed to do it. How could that sort of thing be sustained across the country? Totally inappropriate.

Vanessa Smith ● 3224d

Heathrow and Hounslow council both have a major impact on Brentford. People in positions of power within both organisations that live here, especially if family connections also live here, would see both sides of what they propose and so be far less inclined to wallop a new approach path over our heads, pollute us above legal maximums, or fill every spare inch of land with 24 storey tower blocks.  Because they don't live here they see local objections as simply one of the obstacles to be stepped over in achieving their aims.  There is no local understanding. Heathrow is owned by a company and so is doing what it can to maximise shareholder value. The council isn't a private company, although with property development appears to act just as if it were, so it's particularly galling that our council tax is directly paying the quarter million pound packages some of those people are on. I'm sure the top managers at Heathrow and Hounslow council all have nice houses out in the country which aren't under approach paths or looked over by the latest tower block, but if they did then I'm equally sure policy would quickly become the complete opposite of what it is today.When it comes to massive cuts to local authority budgets then I can think of a few that can still be made which wouldn't be particularly damaging. Far from it, win-win cuts to be made I think. And if it's necessary to replace the roles then people should be sourced from within the borough. A key qualification for any such job is that you be one of the people affected by what you do.

Lorne Gifford ● 3224d

What a peculiar argument - isn't the same thing true across the country? You can hardly blame people for wanting to earn as much as they can, can you? At one time it could be said that a lot of people who worked for Hounslow lived  here and had family connections here too, that I believe made for better service, since those halcyon days we've had massive, damaging cuts to local authority budgets. Jobs long gone, and temporary staff and consultants are now the order of the day with no personal investment into an area they hardly know, all adding to frustration for residents.

Vanessa Smith ● 3224d

It would be nice if local people had the decent Heathrow jobs, but then similarly it would be nice if local people had the high paid jobs within Hounslow Council. In both cases though those jobs are filled by people who live miles away and see 'Heathrow/Hounslow' as nothing more than a job from which they should extract maximum income and maximum career building.

Lorne Gifford ● 3224d

As a Councillor in Bedfont, I want to let people know that a bunch of Labour Party Councillors visited Heathrow to challenge on key items that we thought important:-What are you doing to be a certified London Living Wage Employer-How can you help ordinary people from Feltham/Bedfont get the management jobs in the airport, as we note most the management jobs are taken by people from outside the 5 local boroughs-We discussed the pollution of de-icer in the River Crane-We were keen to understand the pollution levels and understand night flights-We are trying to push them to give encouragement with the proposals for business rates where we don't want them all to go to Hillingdon, but half to go to Hounslow (the building of terminal 5 enabled Hillingdon to get 15 years of £1M a year s106 money)So we are not all in Heathrow's pockets- some of us do challenge and push.  I would like to point out that in Bedfont about 2/3 of our ward are supportive of the airport as they are so dependent on it- we as Councillors in Bedfont are neutral- we want the best for the community so are pushing hard on the working conditions/points above.I would suggest that if anyone is inclined to consider the boundary commission consultation.  The airport is located in Hillingdon and the MP is there also, but the London Borough of Hounslow has the most employees who work at the airport....

Samantha Christie ● 3231d

Regardless of who our MP is, Hounslow seem to be in the grip of Heathrow and feel they can stick two fingers up at their own residents in defiance of their own manifesto.

Ian Speed ● 3241d

Possibly because Mary Cadbury doesn't exist?

Steve Taylor ● 3241d