Helen at Boris Watch:
The vast majority of the capacity audience were from Sipson (the village which would be razed for the new runway) and Hayes, both in the borough of Hillingdon. An element of the audience reminded me of the anti-paedophile lynch mobs which periodically emerge in the UK. There was nobody from the village of Cranford in the neighbouring borough of Hounslow, despite the fact that BAA propose to drop the so-called Cranford Agreement which prevents aircraft taking off directly over the village. In fact, I believe there was only myself and one other audience member from Hounslow, which is most affected by noise and pollution from aircraft landing on the existing two runways.
I'd be interested to hear more about local advertising of this event, bearing in mind that Hounslow is Labour country in parliamentary terms. I'm also very interested by the the report on Additional Public Consultation Events (pdf) considered (as Helen notes) by the BMAC on Tuesday. It says:
By definition, the nature and format of these meetings will deliberately vary from event to event. They are intended to be "issue" led, and therefore will focus on topics of interest or in anticipation of such at the time leading up to the next event. The exact nature of each event – debate, multi-topic public forum, individual speech(es) and so on will be determined on an event-by-event basis, as will the number and nature of speakers on stage.
Sounds to me like a recipe for a barely-concealed, tax payer-funded party political rally. Careful, Boris: London isn't your personal fiefdom, you know.
