As the anniversary of Rachel Reeves voicing her backing for a third runway at Heathrow came and went, it was clear that the longstanding project is still mired in controversy both local and national.
We spoke to some of the major voices demanding that the government to think again, both of them having campaigned for decades against the runway’s building.
Justine Bayley, for example, is the leader of campaigning coalition Stop Heathrow Expansion, living just metres from the site of the what would be the border fence of a third runway, her village wiped out by the proposed development.
Other resistance has come from environmental groups like Friends of the Earth, as well as MPs like Andy Slaughter, whose London constituency has for years been in the middle of the new flight path.
However, both the support group Back Heathrow and the airport itself maintain that the runway will be good for business, remain privately funded, and that it has widespread local support as well as industrial.
And it’s at least a decade before the proposed runway might see its first traffic – so these are just the opening salvos in what will be a bitterly fought over development.
Listen below:
Featured Image Credit: Rich Brann
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