On Thursday, the UK gave the go-ahead for the building of a third runway at London’s Heathrow airport at a cost of £9 billion ($13.2 billion). However, one resident vows that he’s not going anywhere.
Jack Clarke, 96, who has lived in Sipson since it was still farmland, tells Reuters that he’s going to stay in his home and defy the bulldozers. He’s not going to take compensation and he won’t leave. He promises that they will not get him out of his house because he’s been there too long. He worked on the farms for over 40 years after moving to the village before the start of the Great Depression in 1929.
Sipson is a small village wedged between two of Britain’s busiest motorways on the airport’s northern boundary. The development of the runway, additional terminal and extra roads at Heathrow will lead to “the destruction of more than 700 homes, a 500-year-old pub and a school.”
The airport didn’t open until 1946 and it has been expanding ever since.
Britain says the third runway and additional terminal is critical for its economic prosperity. Opponents say that it will increase noise pollution and “make a nonsense of the government’s environmental credentials.”
Security guard Michael Eede says that schools, churches, even the cemetery will be destroyed. He and other locals don’t trust assurances from airport operator BAA that the Cherry Lane Cemetery could be saved.
Resident Linda O’Brien said that her nephew is buried there and she vows that if they try to dig it up, “I will be lying here on my nephew’s grave.”
Greenpeace has bought a plot of land behind the pub. It plans to divide them into parcels to sell them to supporters to delay the development.
Campaigners have even put up words in large white capital letters reading “Our Climate, Our Land” to send their message to the thousands of passengers who pass overhead each day.
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“Defy the bulldozers”. “Lying here on my nephew’s grave”. What idiots! Democratic processes are such that individuals, once a decision has been made, do nothing but make fools out of themselves. I’m assuming the Heathrow expansion went through some debate and a decision was made in accordance with UK law. Not everyone is going to be happy regardless of the decision. Linda O’Brien’s nephew is dead, he is not going to care if his grave is moved. Jack Clarke at 96 years of age is ill equipped to fight a forced removal.
Frustrating the efforts of a democratic society might make the newspapers happy but it is a pain in the butt Suck it up. The decision has been made. Be glad you’re in a country where you WILL get compensated.
Greenpeace makes me ashamed to be a Canadian.
ummm, this guy is 96 years old. by the time they break ground there’s a good chance he’ll be irrelevant.
did these people think the airport *wasn’t* going to grow?