Protest camp set up

last updated 8 January 2015

London

Hundreds of environmental activists began camping out in a field near London’s Heathrow Airport this week to protest a planned runway expansion. Activists said the additional air traffic that a third runway would generate would increase pollution and accelerate global warming. Around 2,000 protesters were expected to move into the camp, and roughly the same number of police were deployed on the perimeter to guard against attempts to interfere with airport operations. Most British sentiment is on the side of the activists. “At the present rate of airport expansion,” said columnist George Walden in the London Times, “Britain will cease being an island and become an aircraft carrier.”