BAA Reported To Be Giving Up On Third Heathrow Runway |
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No planning application before next election
Ealing council has welcomed the news that airport operator BAA has apparently bowed to opposition to a third runway at Heathrow airport. The Sunday Times reports that BAA will not submit a planning application before the general election and will not sign large contracts to “bounce” a future Conservative government into accepting it. However the Sunday Times reports that they have already privately admitted they were surrendering. The scheme’s opponents are delighted. Councillor David Millican Ealing Cabinet Member for Transport & Regeneration says: ''After intense lobbying by this Council, Mayor Boris Johnson and others, BAA have told the Conservative Shadow Transport Secretary, Theresa Villiers MP, that they won’t sign large contracts to “bounce” any future Conservative Government into accepting it. "So finally, the game is up for BAA. This is great news for the residents of this borough who don’t want our lives further blighted by more noise and pollution.'' "This comes days after the chief executive of British Airways said that if a third runway is not built, the airline will axe many domestic and European flights. Good. "Instead, many short haul and domestic flights will make way for a new high-speed rail link, and my constituents will be spared the thousands of extra flights, with all the associated pollution that would bring, which a third runway would have brought." BAA and British Airways said the runway was needed to ensure Heathrow can compete with large European airports. The airport operator wanted annual flights to increase from 480,000 to more than 700,000. John Stewart, chairman of Hacan (Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise) ClearSkies, said: “There are all sorts of reasons that businesses come to London and Heathrow is just one of them.”
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