This is not about money – it’s about our lives and our grandchildren lives

13 May This is not about money – it’s about our lives and our grandchildren lives

My competition is for Student Journalism Awards at the Online Journalism Awards. The category I am entering to is a small one and honors an excellent student package or project that expertly uses digital storytelling and technologies regarding a specific story or topic to inform its audience. Judges will consider the quality of the journalism; the digital production and design of the coverage; and the ways in which digital, social, mobile and other platforms are employed to reach, inform and engage with the audience. The project LJ agreed to was a multimedia feature consisting of 1500 words and 2-3min video. Apart from the we agreed to I included three short audio clips from my interview and some wildtrack to demonstrate the effect I was going for in this feature.

The original post can be found here: http://wildlifexplorer.co.uk/community/this-is-not-about-money-its-about-our-lives-and-our-grandchildren-lives/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4MReuLH8p0 It’s been a year since the British Government approved Heathrow airport‘s new third runaway, and just a couple of weeks since the High Court ruled the decison as lawful. And yet, they didn’t really seem concerned about the implications of their decision on local level. Well, this story is. This is a story about the communities behind the success of the busiest airport in Europe – Heathrow airport. A story about the impacts its prosperity has brought upon local residents. It’s about unveiling some of the silent uphots from the airport’s growth. So, our story begins here – it’s the third oldest Inn in England, The Ostrich Inn. It’s a cosy little place in Colnbrook, Slough and as my interviewee says – its got its own share under  Heathrow flight paths. And yet, he still likes to come and work here because of the atmosphere and people he meets.

His name is Charles Burke – currently a pensioner, these days Charles has devoted his time to  runing the Slough and District Against Runaway 3 expansion site. He has been living in the area all his life and explored it quite a bit before eventually settling in Colnbrook after his divorce. It has been twenty years since then and today Colnbrook, he says, it’s not really the same place anymore.

It’s a story as old as time – when corporations decide to increase their presence and profits, it is too often on the back of small communities. And our story is no exception.

Twenty years ago, when Charles moved to Colnbrook, Heathrow flights were twice as less than now. To put it into some kind of perspective, there was far less air pollution, far less noise pollution and there weren’t so many asthma cases amongst toddlers in the area.

    Fast forward two decades and some 275,000 more flights a year, and you can easily hear, feel and even smell the difference. https://soundcloud.com/lsbu_mmjs/when-charles-moved According to the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) the area around Heathrow is the second major pollutant for nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) in London, after cental London. Records show that legal limits of nitrogen dioxide in close proximity of the airport have been breached. So, yeah the limits have been breached – and so what? Well, for starters air pollution has been linked to cancer, asthma, stroke and heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and dementia. https://soundcloud.com/lsbu_mmjs/colnbrook-affected

A 2018 Slough Borough Council report acknowledges that:

“Air pollution levels within the Borough of Slough continue to remain a significant environmental and public health concern…

Adding: “The rate of improvement required to meet the air quality objectives is still slow, and air pollution remains a significant issue for Slough residents and will do so for some years to come…”

A Defra analysis by The Times placed Pippins Primary School in Slough, London as the second most polluted school in Britain. Apparently, there are more than 200 tons of NO2 being released annually around the school which comes as a no surprise, considering how close it is to Heathrow airport and a big motorway junction. It is important to understand that the mass of the vehicles on this big motorway junction are also vehicles travelling from and to Heathrow airport. https://soundcloud.com/lsbu_mmjs/noise-pollution-puppins-primary-school

“The problem with Colnbrook – it’s a bit unique, unfortunately. We get the arrivals and departure”, says Charles.

“And if you get the A380s they come over here and they are the nosiest you have ever heard. The first thing you hear is a very shrilling-whistling sort of noise – and that’s before you have even seen the aircraft. Once it goes past, high density noise does disapper to an extent but then you are left with the engine turbine noise. Plus the pollutants coming out of the engine.”

Funilly enough, when talking about the Concorde, Charles still gives him a justice to both – the genuine craft put into it, and the mind – blowing noise this “work of art” was making.

In 2013 researchers at Imperial College London and King’s College London conducted a study to explore the links between aircraft noise and risk of stroke, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease in the general population. About 3.6 million residents living near Heathrow airport participated in the study. What they found is that these risks were around 10 to 20 per cent higher in areas with highest levels of aircraft noise compared with the areas with least noise.

Sixteen years after Concorde’s last flight noise levels in Slough are still way above the normal and accepted limits. Where in places they could reach as much as 60 decibels, Charles shares that aircrafts in the area fly as low as 800 feet. At such low height you could easily not only hear, but even see what’s been written on the aircraft. And after twenty years in the area he still gets woken up by them:

“There seems to be a flight that goes at five past one every day – it’s a cargo flight. Cargo flight are always full, so they are very heavy and they do make a noise. And if they are slightly north, then almost rattles the windows. And that’s one in the morning, during what they call ‘a rest by period’. They are allowed sixteen flights, I think, during the ‘rest by period’.”

But it’s not only Colnbrook that has been affected by the airport. The surrounding villages around Heathrow would teared apart. Some,like Sipson and Harmondsworth, would be partially destroyed leaving the rest of the village unfit for occupancy. Another, Longford, would be brought down to the ground to make space for the new runaway if it goes ahead. There are some 750 owners across those villages who are covered by a compulsary purchase area scheme.

The village of Longford dates back beyond the medieval times. It is a little, quirky village that you normally only get to see in places like Kent. When you first walk in the village it feels a bit like the time has suddenly frozen. It has successfully survived for centuries while everything around it has been changing. It’s not London – it’s like the time had stopped and kept this village untouched by the hammer of the modern era.

Charles I had constructed the artificial watercourse, The Longford River to provide water for the lakes at Hampton Court and Bushy Park. But in the 1940s the course of the river was changed to due to the building of todays Heathrow, and again when building terminal five. And as faith would have it, if a new runaway goes ahead, it would be the entire village to disappear this time to make space for yet another airport development.

Sipson had long fought against any expansion and had stopped it, for a while. But then in 2010 just before the general election, Heathrow announced that it would buy their homes at 2002 prices under a bond agreement. At first, only few agreed to sell but then many of the residents became uncertain and impatient of what the future holds for them. And thus, little by little they started selling. By 2012 there were about 540 postal addresses in the village of which only about 80 long-term residents. Heathrow has bought 225 homes and the rest were social housing or property companies owned.

The British Government has said that would pay £2.6bn in compensation packages for residents and noise reduction systems. That will include paying residents the full market value of their property plus 25%, in addition to stamp duty and all associated legal fees.

But many decided to stay and fight. They didn’t sell – instead they took tought but peacefull approach and started expressing their point in the form of street art. Art trying to remind society and corporations a lesson that seems to have been forgotten today – there are much more important things on this world than profit and power. Communities, health, environment just to name a few are way more important and much more fragile in times when everything and everyone ‘has got a price’.

I approached Heathrow for an interview or any kind of comment they may have about the impacts their business has got on the surrounding communities. There has been no reply.

Now, there would definitely be economic advantages from Heathrow’s expansion. It create up to 180,000 jobs across the country, and deliver up to £187 billion in economic benefits. It would also  create 5,000 additional apprenticeships, bringing the total to 10,000 by 2030. There would be more daily flights to South America and Asia and it will help to boost the UK’s trading potential. Those are all undoubtably major economic considerations when deciding the future on a third runaway.

It all comes down to the question how worthy would all that be in a few decades time when the impacts of the decisions we make today come for us? Could all this money potentially ever justify all this CO2 and NO2 we fed our planet with? Could it justify the increasing public health issues linked to the air and noise pollution? How about the fact that children have been ripped of even from a chance to live healthy life? At the end, is there any boundary at all that shouldn’t be crossed? Or the economic advantages would always justify the means?