London boroughs spent nearly £1m opposing Heathrow expansion
A number of London boroughs and Transport for London have spent almost £1m over the last year and a half in challenging plans to expand Heathrow Airport.
Between September 2018 and March this year, the boroughs of Hillingdon, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Hammersmith and Fulham, as well as the capital’s transport operator, have spent £944,603 opposing the building of a third runway.
The total sum, which was obtained through a freedom of information request by campaign group Back Heathrow, is made up of legal fees, advertising, and direct campaign funding.
Nearly half of the total came from £452,336 in legal fees paid by Transport for London, while Boris Johnson’s home borough of Hillingdon spent £159,626.50.
The Prime Minister once vowed to lie down in front of the bulldozers to prevent the controversial infrastructure project going ahead.
In February, the expansion plans were dealt a potentially devastating blow when the Court of Appeal ruled that they were “unlawful” as they did not take into account the 2015 Paris climate accords.
Shortly afterwards, Johnson’s spokesman announced that the government would not appeal the decision.
Although not party to the case, Heathrow Airport said that it would appeal instead, in a bid to keep the plans alive.
Business groups reacted to the decision with despair, saying that not building a third runway would seriously damage the UK’s economic prospects.
However, the onset of the coronavirus crisis, which has crippled global aviation, has meant that even if the project does go ahead a third runway will not be required for at least 15 years, according to Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye.
Due to the fall in air traffic the airport will operate just one runway until October.
Back Heathrow said that today’s FOI findings brought the total that boroughs had spent on opposing the third runway plan to over £3m.
The campaign’s executive director Parmjit Dhanda said: “These FOI requests give us all a sobering reminder that whilst some politicians are talking up a ‘build, build, build’ agenda, the reality on the ground is different.
“Lawyers have gotten rich taking up councils’ ‘block, block, block’ agenda. It would be sensible if they engaged constructively with the project to ensure we build the cleanest and greenest runway in the world.”