{"id":4494,"date":"2014-09-24T12:50:43","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T12:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=4494"},"modified":"2014-09-24T12:50:43","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T12:50:43","slug":"london-airports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=4494","title":{"rendered":"London Airports"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can’t understand why London has always failed to sort out its problems over airports, although it’s something that has affected me much of my life.\u00a0 I was born just a mile or two from the site of one of London’s earliest airports, and with another just down the road. As a kid I played in my back garden with the planes streaming into Heathrow sometimes so low overhead that I felt I could reach up and touch them and had nightmares having seen them come over with flames coming from their engines.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nSpeeches after protest march at Harmondsworth against proposed Third Runway<\/a> at Heathrow, 2003<\/small><\/p>\n

Heathrow was a mistake from the start, pushed through by dressing it up as a military airport (which wasn’t needed)\u00a0 in WW2 by people who knew it would not get approval as a civilian project. By the 1960s it was glaringly obvious that London needed a new airport, and both the Roskill Commission and the Edwards Report concluded Heathrow was in the wrong place (and was badly designed.)\u00a0 Roskill called for a new airport, suggesting 3 sites to the north of London and Foulness, eventually making Cublington their preferred choice. PM Edward Heath responded to nimby pressure and rejected this, going instead for Foulness (Maplin Sands),\u00a0 and things started to get moving, only to be cancelled a couple of years later as too expensive.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCliffe<\/a>, 2002<\/small><\/p>\n

Various studies and proposals followed, with another estuary site, Cliffe, being finally rejected in 2003, and Boris coming up with his island plan in 2008. Another runway for Heathrow – which would have made the problem of it being in the wrong place even more acute – was rejected in 2010, but in 2012 the Davies Commission was set up in a thinly veiled attempt to revive this dead duck.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nClimate Rush protest against Heathrow Expansion<\/a>, 2009<\/small><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, other countries facing similar problems have gone ahead and built their new airports in sensible places. In London we’ve made things worse by developing yet another airport in the wrong place, London City Airport. Roskill I think got it more or less right back in 1971, and we should be considering sites in that general area, around the M1 and the A1.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n‘The Future’ protest at London City Airport, 2014<\/small><\/p>\n

So when Tamsin Omond\u00a0 handed me a flyer and invited me to photograph a protest by a group who call themselves ‘The Future’ at London City Airport<\/a>, I was keen to do so, even when it did mean travelling across London rather earlier than I like.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThe Eye, The Future. London City Airport, 2014<\/small><\/small><\/p>\n

On their web site <\/a>they write:<\/p>\n

The Eye is The Future\u2019s symbol. \u00a0A large circle drawn around the eye to mean:<\/p>\n

We are connected<\/strong>:
\nWe unite with a circle drawn around our eye to fight for our future.<\/p>\n

We are the watchers:<\/strong>
\nWe judge the powerful when they do not act to\u00a0protect the future from climate change.<\/p>\n

We are the creators:<\/strong>
\nWe refuse to be victims. We create our own world.<\/p>\n


\n