third runway

Impersonator extraordinaire, Airplotter and all-round funny man Alistair McGowan is shortly embarking on a nationwide tour of Britain, and he's going to great lengths to make it as green as possible. Alistair is a long-time Greenpeace supporter, and has committed himself to playing a key role in opposing aviation expansion by jointly buying the Airplot with us - the piece of land we acquired slap bang in the middle of the proposed new third runway development site at Heathrow Airport.

For as long as it's been pushing for an expanded Heathrow, BAA has been making exaggerated claims about the environmental impacts of a third runway. Now they, along with aviation lobbying group Future Heathrow, have been hauled up by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for making "misleading" claims about the levels of dirt, noise and air pollution a new runway will generate.

After this week's high speed rail blinder, there's more good news on the road towards halting airport expansion. In the lofty legal realms of the High Court, a decision has been made to give the case against a third runway at Heathrow a public hearing. The case is being brought by an unprecedented coalition of groups, including Greenpeace, local councils, CPRE, HACAN, NoTRAG and WWF.

When the new Eurostar terminal opened at St Pancras in 2007, we gave it a big thumbs up

In one fell swoop, a massive hole has been blown in the government's aviation policy. And the person holding the detonator is not a member of the shadow cabinet or even a group of campaigners, but no lesser person than the transport secretary Lord Adonis and his plan for a network of high speed trains for the UK. Crikey.