Heathrow exhibition

Last Friday I attended the Department for Transport's exhibition as part of their consultation into adding capacity at Heathrow airport at the Wetland Centre in Barnes.

The exhibition essentially comprised blown-up panels of the summary consultation document and interactive touchscreen devices to look at the maps; but slightly more usefully a range of Department for Transport officials were on hand to answer questions and some of the more detailed reference documents were available to take away.

Outside the exhibition the anti-Heathrow expansion campaign HACAN clearskies had a stand - I spent some time chatting with the group's chair John Stewart.

I have also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to find out exactly which areas have received the consultation document: some 9,000 have been distributed in Putney: principally in the area closest to Barnes, which falls within (or just short of) the contour considered by the DfT as the area most affected by noise nuisance from planes. I am currently obtaining the specific list of postcodes because of course, even if it is conceded that noise is slightly reduced elsewhere in the constituency it remains a major blight.

There are two key problems with this consultation for me:

First, it isn't about the question of whether Heathrow should get a third runway - because this was consulted on and agreed to a couple of years ago - but rather what options are best (or least bad) for the development of the airport in light of this;

And second, the consultation questionnaire is "opaque" to say the least - the questions are highly technical and you need to have a considerable determination to plough through the jargon and references to other texts to be able to contribute meaningfully;

To date, I don't think the government has done itself any favours with the way it has gone about this exercise: it has looked evasive even when it has not actually been so and by dripping out every few years very narrow aspects of the aviation problems facing London (the next will, of course, be in 2012 when night-flights policy is reviewed) rather than giving us a say on the overall strategy for London it is very difficult to submit views for or against the broader issues.

I'll be blogging further about the issues within this current consultation and my broader views concerning aviation policy in general in the coming weeks.