68% of local people back a third runway, says the Back Heathrow campaign.

Back Heathrow (the campaign to build the new runway) welcomes the release of a survey revealing that 68% of residents living in neighbouring communities to the airport support a third runway. The key drivers are jobs (backed by 77% of residents) and benefits to the local economy (cited by 50%).

Support for a third runway continues to grow amongst ReformUK grassroots, ahead of the London elections. On Friday 27th March, over 40 Reform activists from across London joined the Back Heathrow campaign for a presentation on the plans for Europe’s biggest infrastructure project – Heathrow’s third runway.

Surrey’s Reform UK activists are backing plans for a new runway at Heathrow. This came just 24 hours after Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick MP said (with regards to delayed major infrastructure projects): “If this Government fails, and continues to fail, Reform UK will pass emergency legislation to build a third runway at Heathrow.”

The decision today by the government to ask Heathrow to build a new runway has been welcomed by campaign group ‘Back Heathrow’ which represents over 100,000 local people who have been calling for growth and jobs with expansion for the past decade. 

It’s important to get things into context. Despite some of the headlines, the EAC has not pulled back on Heathrow’s third runway but has talked about the challenges involved in getting to net-zero by 2050, alongside growth in UK aviation.

Nonetheless, I would urge the Committee’s membership to consider 3 key points.

At an event organised by Unite the Union and Back Heathrow (the campaign for a third runway at Heathrow) earlier this week, Unite issued a rallying cry to make West London ‘the most unionised part of the UK.’

Lindsey Olliver, Unite Regional Officer, said:

“Unite already represents over 30,000 Heathrow workers. It was great to join forces today with Parmjit Dhanda and his team from Back Heathrow to hear some detail about what expansion could look like in terms of new jobs and apprenticeships. Unionised jobs deliver better pay and better working conditions. Heathrow expansion is a great opportunity to make west London one of the most unionised parts of the UK, and that’s what we will work towards.” 

In a visit organised by Back Heathrow, senior members of Heathrow’s executive team paid a special visit to the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall Gurdwara on Tuesday 9th September. To deepen and celebrate the airport’s historic ties with the area’s Sikh community.