John McDonnell MP, John Stewart and others with Stewart’s latest work ‘Victory Against All The Odds’
My father used to cycle past the orchards of Heath Row, then one of the most fertile market gardening and orchard areas supplying food for London. My mother grew up on a market garden a couple of miles south of where the airport now is; around ten years ago the last remnants of the orchard her father planted were dug up for social housing.
Then came the airport, and they changed its name to Heathrow. We got used to planes passing a hundred or so feet above our heads on their way to touch down. But the planes got larger and larger, and noisier and noisier. Then came the jets with a quantum leap in noise (and years later another leap with Concord, but fortunately there were few of them) and things became near impossible. Double glazing helped but meant you had to live with windows closed, and even then listening to the radio or holding a conversation was often difficult.
I moved a little away from the flight path, and when they built Terminal 4, the runway that took the planes closest to my house could no longer be safely used (bringing Heathrow down from its orginal five or six to a two runway airport.) But Heathrow seemed insatiable and unstoppable. T4 was going to be the last they would ever need, but then came Terminal 5. Again they would never need another runway or terminal, but within a couple of years they were saying it was absolutely necessary to have a third runway – and it wasn’t long before they were also planning T6.
Local residents in Sipson, Harmondsworth and Harlington whose homes would have been demolished or impossibly blighted if the third runway went ahead decided to make a stand, and founded the ‘No Third Runway Action Group‘, NoTRAG. I photographed its first major demonstration in June 2003.
Marching in Sipson
The rally on the green at Harmondsworth
They kept up their fight, and built up a coalition with other groups including most of the local councils in the surrounding area and with environmental groups such as HACAN, led by John Stewart. MPs too gave their support, including local MP John McDonnell (though my silly local MP preferred to support BAA – though it was his expenses rather than this that finally forced him to resign.) They fought the proposal at every level, with Greenpeace coming up with the idea of the ‘Airplot‘, a small piece of land in the middle of the runway site that ended up with over 80,000 beneficial owners – and I was one of them.The ‘Climate Camp‘ at Heathrow also did a great deal to raise interest and debate over the issues.
The Big No for Heathrow March & Rally, May 2008
Over the years I photographed many more events related to the campaign. More marches, Whitehall demonstrations, the Terminal 5 Flashmob, and of course the Climate Rush on tour.
Terminal 5 Flash Mob
Climate Rush and NoTRAG at the perimeter fence, Heathrow
Airport noise caused by Heathrow effects much of West and Central London – several million people – and what had started as a local campaign soon became something much larger. And of course there were larger issues involved around the environment and a growing realisation of the accelerating damage that aviation was causing to it.
One important point came when the Conservative opposition came out against the proposal. Of course it was partly party politics, partly a matter of seeing the growing political importance of Green issues generally. And once they were in power they stuck to their decision, and the third runway is, at least for the moment, history.
But although the photographs aren’t so interesting the event that pleased me most was the celebration at the end of August – pictures on My London Diary. It was as John Stewart said, a ‘Victory Against All The Odds‘. Everyone said at the start it couldn’t be done, but it was. And I’m pleased to have played a part – if very small – in it too.