January 30th - The village standing in Heathrow's way
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced government backing for expansion at London Heathrow airport, I've been to Harmondsworth – the pretty village that will be half-demolished if the plan for a third runway goes ahead. I met Rob Barnstone, coordinator of the No 3rd Runway Coalition, and Justine Bayley of the Stop Heathrow Expansion group.
This podcast is free, as is Independent Travel's weekly podcast. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Thursday the 30th of January. |
| 0:07.5 | And big news, I didn't say good news yesterday, that the government is now backing a third runway at Heathrow. |
| 0:17.1 | What will actually that mean to people on the ground? That's a question for Justine Bailey, who is the chairman of Stop Heathrow Expansion, also joined by Rob Barnstone, who is the coordinator for the no third runway coalition. A couple of people who I imagine are dismayed by what we heard |
| 0:40.5 | yesterday. Indeed, I mean, not surprised perhaps, but certainly dismayed. And Rachel Reeves, |
| 0:48.1 | apart from promising all sorts of wonderful things for growth in the country in general, |
| 0:53.3 | she said putting a runway at Heathrow would allow more growth, which I question. |
| 1:00.0 | And she promised that it would keep all the Labour Party's environmental promises about expansion at Heathrow. |
| 1:07.3 | And seeing those conditions aren't really being met at the moment, |
| 1:11.4 | how putting an extra 260,000 planes a year in the air around Heathrow |
| 1:17.7 | could make it better, I really can't understand. |
| 1:21.9 | Well, Rob, I guess the Labour Party, the government, would simply say |
| 1:25.4 | it's just going to be a dash for growth by the new government. |
| 1:30.8 | Well, I think that this is actually a mistaken pledge that the government have made today, because growth in the terms of the third runway at Heathrow, it's not going to be a quick fix. |
| 1:41.4 | This planning process is going to take several years, even with the |
| 1:45.4 | government's reforms to planning infrastructure that they also announced today. And that process |
| 1:50.7 | will also probably be subject to various legal challenges as well. So it's not going to be a quick |
| 1:57.5 | fix. And if that's what the Chancellor wants as part of her economic strategy, then I think she might have backed the wrong project. I mean, it's not going to be a quick fix. And if that's what the Chancellor wants as part of her economic strategy, |
| 2:02.5 | then I think she might have backed the wrong project. I mean, even Heathrow have said that |
| 2:06.5 | this could take more than a decade before any new runway is operational. So it's not the quick |
| 2:12.4 | fix that the government wants. Of course, it is as things stand, and if it were to go ahead, is going to have a severe |
| 2:19.5 | impact on exactly where we are now. This is a beautiful old five bells in Harmansworth, which is |
| 2:26.7 | to the north-west of Heathrow Airport's present location. A great pub if you get a chance to |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Independent, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Independent and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.