Day 2516: Conservatory and Labour Show their True Colours… They have Red Faces Not Green Credentials

Wednesday:


Hilarity at the end of Prime Monster's Questionable Time as Conservatory Mr David Half-cocked Amoral demands a stop to windmills… like the one on Mr Balloon's roof.

But the SERIOUS damage is to be done by the Secretary of State for Ruining Everyone's Environment, Mr Ruth Kelly, who is going to give the go-ahead to a THIRD runway and a SIXTH terminal at Britain's Busiest Noise Polluter: Heathrow Airport.

"These plans could see the number of flights from Heathrow rise to 800,000 per year, making a mockery of any attempts to tackle climate change," said Ms Susan Kramer-vs-Kramer, Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesperson.

The Labour and Conservatories both back these proposals – involving the BULLDOZING of two local villages – leaving only the Liberal Democrats to stick up for local people and future generations.

The argument for ever-increasing air travel into Heathrow is surely very weak.

From a climate change point of view we NEED to be looking at keeping increases in air travel to a minimum. And there are two PERFECTLY LOGICAL alternatives available to us, neither of which need to impose more on a Heathrow already stretched to capacity.

Firstly, we need to look at reducing the number of INTERNAL air flights, and the answer to that is surely to make our RAILWAYS work properly. High speed rail links from the capital to the regions would be the environmentally friendly alternative, and would ease the overcrowding on those Heathrow runways.

Liberal Democrats already have plans to Get Britain Back on Track
and THAT is where we should be spending money, not on making things worse in West London.

Secondly, if more air-travel really IS necessary, we should be looking at using the available capacity in regional airports, like Manchester or Bristol or Glasgow. Instead of having EVERYTHING fly into Heathrow – in order to be packed onto lorries and driven round the motorways causing more congestion and pollution – and instead of having EVERYONE fly off out of Heathrow – packing themselves and their kids into cars to try and drive there on motorways already congested with lorries. We should be looking at SMARTER thinking about routes in and out of the country.

And we all know that one of the big PROBLEMS of the British economy is the INEQUALITY caused by most of the businesses and work being drawn to London while the regions are left behind. Expanding Heathrow at the expense of everywhere else is only going to EXACERBATE that!

Mr Kelly's promises that the development must meet strict NOISE POLLUTION tests do not carry much weight either when the Government is apparently trying to SIDELINE its own report into the PROBLEM of Airport Noise. What is the use of the Government insisting that airports do not exceed the limit of 57 decibels when their own experts are saying that noise becomes intrusive at an average of just 50 decibels?

We cannot just carry on agreeing to the endless expansion of Heathrow's concrete. We need a BETTER ANSWER!