The government is expected to launch its long-awaited consultation on expansion at Heathrow on Thursday 22 November. Airport owners British Airports Authority (BAA) want to build a new runway and a sixth terminal.
Through the Freedom of Information Act Greenpeace has obtained documents which reveal worryingly close links between the airport authority and the Department of Transport, working together to influence the outcome of the consultation:
- Extraordinary collusion between BAA and the government. They have set up a joint body - the Heathrow Delivery Group - aimed at steering the plans through the consultation process.
- BAA officials have written parts of the consultation.
- BAA supplied the data for calculations of noise and pollution that inform the premise of the consultation document. Opposition groups have not been permitted to challenge the data.
- The Department for Transport and BAA have drawn up a 'risk list' - a list of threats to the building of the 3rd runway. The list includes the 2M campaign, the group comprising councils representing 2 million people that is opposed to the plans.
Please note that these documents, which are selected documents from a batch of 200 pages, were released to us in the heavily redacted form that you will see in the PDF files below.
