Grow Heathrow - Welcome Squatters?

I've just watched an interesting program on telly about squatters. Some of it was a bit annoying, some was insightful such as the amount of good stuff of all kinds that just gets chucked out that squatters live off etc.

But one part of it really got my attention. Apparently the proposed site of Heathrow's 3rd runway is a piece of waste land that some squatters have occupied. Except they've turned it from a wreck full of rubbish into an eco/art project that is now so much part of the local community that schools and the likes take groups there to take part in art and horticultural projects.

The squatters are trespassing, yet they've opened the site to the public and run it as an educational facility. Its a strange situation to be in I think.

It seems they have a website, here it is.

http://www.transitionheathrow.com/grow-heathrow/

Interesting stuff.

 

Cool.

Much rather have a market garden than another runway.

My Dad landed at a grass runway in London when he was demobed, he said it had a small shed as a control tower & he had to ask the lads where he was, they said it was a common called heathrow.

 

Got to say living in Kent I'd rather see a third runway.

Squatters are illegal, occupiers of buildings/land which are owned by other people.
What would you say if somebody just took your car, saying, you were not using it at the time?
Would that make it OK?

A third runway has got to be more sensible than that twit Boris, with his fantasy island.

Although I think Manston should be in there with a chance.

 

I think the subject of airports will always be a difficult one.
On the one hand, nobody wants more noise, but on the other they generate work.

If Boris got his island, Heathrow would probably shut down, and the area would become some kind of ghost town.
OK if you dont actually work there.

So unless you moved in around that area before the airport was there you cant really complain.
Can you ??

 

I see your thinking FC, but are we talking high speed rail?
Between the airports.

If we are you only have to look at HS2 in order to work out that would also not be accepted.

There is far too much happening in the South East of the country, I'm sure much of it should move further North, taking the expanding population with it.
It makes no sense, in such a tiny country as this, to base all this in just one corner.
A high speed rail link from the south to the north is what is needed.

 

People of London are terrified of the idea of living in the frozen wastelands of the north, and even more terrified of us barbarians that live up here. That's why we've always had the north/south divide.

 

The north/ south divide only occurs because of small thinking, we are hardly bigger than most of the states in the US, but we still get this small thinking.
We need to become one place, surely United Kingdom should actually mean that.

 

I remember the years of blight that people in Kent endured during the channel tunnel and the so called HS1 project.
Yes they could not decide on a route for years and people lost their homes over it all.

 

I'd object. Compulsory Purchase orders should be reserved matters of absolute national necessity. For example, if we were at war and we needed to knock down a street because it was the only practical place to build something essential for the war effort. Compulsory purchase has no place in civilian projects or for any project that is a 'nice to have'. That's effectively the same as other people ganging up to forcibly change your life against your will.

Lets say that I received a compulsory purchase order on my house. Lets even say that they offered me double the market value (would never happen that way but lets say hypothetically they did). Great, I could buy a different set of bricks and mortar in a different part of town and still have a few quid left over. Fabulous. Until you consider all the effort I've put into turning this set of bricks and mortar into a family home for me, my wife and son. And how we've made friends here, and my son has settled into the local school and knows literally everyone.

Compulsory purchase orders spoil lives. It happened to a few streets near where I grew up, so that the town centre shopping area could be pointlessly extended (so there's plenty of room for more empty shops as people go to nearby Middlesbrough for their main shopping trips). I knew loads of people who were forced to move. After they were all forced to move, that community of people ceased to exist. Sure we still see some of them about from time to time, but rarely. All those close knit neighbours got forced to disperse and long lasting friendships just fizzled away.