'No' to airport expansion

11:13am Monday 17th March 2008

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Councils representing more than six million people will be joining together today to state their opposition to new airport runways at Stansted and Heathrow and unacceptable environment impacts on their communities.

The event will also mark the formation of the new "CO2" or "Councils Opposing a 2nd Runway" at Stansted campaign and its leaders will be joining forces with the leaders of the "2M Group" of London councils.

The new CO2 cross-party group is made up of councils including Essex County Council, Hertfordshire County Council and Suffolk County Council.

The formation of the group follows BAAs planning application earlier for a second runway at Stansted.

CO2 will vigorously campaign against the proposals highlighting the potentially significant environmental impact and the anticipated increased pressures the proposals will have on existing infrastructure and services.

The group also calls for the potential impact on local communities to be fully and independently assessed.

Leader of Hertfordshire County Council Robert Gordon said: "Hertfordshire's residents are directly affected by the growth of air traffic at Stansted, Heathrow and Luton airports.

"In adding our weight to the opposition to a second runway at Stansted, we also seek to build a coalition of concerned councils across the south of England in order to force a fundamental review of the government's aviation strategy which poses a major threat to the quality of life of our people."