Robbie's blog

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Residents who live on Hasty Lane at the edge of Manchester Airport are preparing to twin with Sipson at Heathrow. Campaigners will organise a live video link-up with residents near Heathrow airport, who would lose their homes if a third runway were built.

Manchest Airport has proposed expanding their freight terminal, which would demolish homes and a large section of the historic Hasty Lane. Hasty Lane residents aren't taking this threat to their community lying down, and have launched Adopt a Resident, which links local residents with direct action campaigners who will help them resist the demolition of their homes and acres of greenbelt land.

Last November Manchester City Council announced its climate change action plan. Despite owning the majority of Manchester Airports Group (which also owns Nottingham East Midlands, Humberside and Bournemouth airports) their supposedly visionary strategy ignored emissions from planes at Manchester Airport . The next day the Council Planning Committee approved plans to bulldoze people's homes on Hasty Lane.

Hasty Lane resident Peter Johnson said: "Together with Sipson residents, we are going to fight these irresponsible and unnecessary plans. Our local councillors all opposed the plans, but they were overruled. The council has let us down, but we’re not going to give up that easily."

Stop Expansion at Manchester Airport spokesperson Sian Jones said: "The residents aren't alone in this - climate justice campaigners from across Manchester and the country are backing them all the way." More power to their elbow!

Manchester City Council announced their 'Call to Action' on climate change last month, which plans to reduce the City's emissions by one third by 2020. "Great!" we thought: the Council owns 55% of Manchester Airport Group (MAG), so surely this call to action would see the Airport's emissions reduce as well?

Alas no: the Council simply washed their hands of this issue. Council Chair, Sir Richard Leese thinks they can't constrain the Airport and is using that old excuse that if the planes didn't fly out from Manchester then they would just fly from somewhere else. That two of MAG's directors, Brian Harrison and Lord Peter Smith are on the Council can't have influenced his decision, right?

The Council Executive are going for a green airport; this oxymoron involves letting the airport grow as big as it likes while talking a lot about it becoming carbon neutral. Unfortunately this carbon neutrality won't include emissions from planes, but will cover magic lightbulbs in the toilets. It's clear that finding credibility in Manchester's climate change plans is like attempting to nail jelly to a wall - the harder you try, the more it falls apart.

Monday's action has shown the power of young people determined to turn the climate talk into climate action. We took the decision to disrupt the airport to directly reduce the CO2 impact of Stansted, as a response to the government's consent to its expansion. We did so with heavy hearts, knowing it would disrupt passengers, because we knew the consequences of this action couldn't be worse than the consequences of inaction. If irreversible climate change kicks in, millions of lives will be destroyed.

We are genuinely grateful for the level of support from people who have agreed with us that desperate times call for desperate measures. We have used this action to ask for everyone to 'please, do something'. We hope that all those that have expressed support for today's action will now think about what they are going to do to ensure the survival of our planet and people on it.

It seems that Plane Stupid's call for domestic flights to be scrapped has not gone unheeded. Tory MP and former environment minister John Gummer called for Manchester-London flights to be scrapped, and said that passengers should take the train instead.

Sounds familiar. This was exactly Plane Stupid's message when it blockaded the domestic departure lounge of Manchester Airport back in October.

The 'Great Aviation Debate' in Manchester Friends Meeting House took place last Thursday in front of an audience of around 150 people.

We organised the debate after the head honchos at Manchester Airport responsed to our blockade of domestic flights back in October. The airport had slagged us off in the Times, saying:

"We would encourage those groups, including environmental groups, to engage in sensible debate and not pull stunts like this."

Watch the video

We're slowly becoming more aware that the forecasted growth rates for aviation threaten all our efforts to stop climate change wiping us off the planet.

While the aviation industry has some insightful arguments in this debate - such as people generally liking flying and wanting to fly more - this "end of the world" effect is a bit of a problem for their marketing departments.

The British Airports Authority (BAA) effectively scored an own goal in their bid to secure an injunction against the Camp for Climate Action. As was widely reported, the original was massively reduced in scale and severity by the High Court. Initially BAA had applied for a far reaching injunction against four defendants and the members of their associate organisations.

These were Leo Murray and Joss Garman from the direct action group Plane Stupid, John Stewart - Chair of Airport Watch and Geraldine Nicholson from the No Third Runway Action Group (No TRAG). Since Airport Watch is an umbrella group including the National Trust, RSPB and other large organisations, the original injuction would have restricted the movements of approximately 5 million people.

BAA do not want next week's Climate Camp to happen obviously fearing the adverse publicity. They proposed that parts of the M25 and parts of the M4 be out of bounds to potential climate campers as well as platforms 6 and 7 of Paddington station and the entire Piccadilly Line.

As it covered so many people over such a large area, it soon became known as the 'Mother of all Injunctions'. Ken Livingstone, furious that Transport for London had not been consulted prior to BAA's application, publicly waded into the debate, saying that someone at BAA must be "out of their skull."

Unsurprisingly, Mrs Justice Swift told BAA to come back with something workable. On Monday 6th August, BAA were granted an injunction against John Stewart, Leo Murray and Joss Garman and members of Plane Stupid only. It stipulates that these persons are not allowed on Heathrow property. Despite some clever press releases from BAA declaring victory, the whole saga has really been an own goal.

The Climate Camp has received massive coverage from the mainstream press, and will now be bigger than it would otherwise have been. It is not covered by the injunction and it is perfectly legal to attend the camp. BAA's lawyer Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, now known as 'TLC' amongst Climate Campers, had bragged of his track record of using the 1997 Protection from Harrassment Act, a law originally designed to protect women from stalkers, to gain injunctions against animal rights and weapons-manufacture protesters.

He had called himself "a rottweiler" - a market-leader in criminalising otherwise lawful behaviour. Now he looks more like Scooby Doo. The injunction granted was not the Protection from Harrassment sought, but a rather softer injuction under common, not criminal, law.

For the majority of people that will attend the camp (estimates range from 2000 to 4000 people) the injunction does not affect them. However, there are some disturbing consequences for Plane Stupid's members regarding freedom of speech. This is because anyone who breaches the injunction "in concert with Plane Stupid" is also covered.

This means that if anyone from Plane Stupid (that is anyone who has been arrested on Plane Stupid actions and spokespeople) aids, abbets or incites direct action against Heathrow until the 31st August (when the injunction expires), they will be in breach of the injunction.

Plane Stupid has already had to alter one of their workshops at the camp.
Members of Plane Stupid (such as myself) are now having to watch what they say. For example, could acknowledging the importance of direct action to the Chartist and Suffragette movements in a press interview at the camp count as incitement? Our lawyers are unsure.

The Camp for Climate Action will happen at Heathrow from Tuesday 14th- 21st August. Each time Heathrow expands, it is granted permission on the basis that it will not expand further. Terminal 4 was accompanied by a promise there would be no Terminal 5. Terminal 5 was accompanied by a promise there would be no third runway. Terminal 5 is not even open yet, but BAA are already pushing for that third runway and Terminal 6.

For the last thirty years, Heathrow residents have been continuously lied to. Meanwhile, aviation's rapid growth rate threatens to undo all our climate change efforts. The Camp will run a variety of workshops and act as an example of sustainable living. As for the rest, the injunction prevents me from commenting further.