Heathrow tempts runway opponents with $1,200 Christmas sweetener

Heathrow Airport will offer hundreds of homeowners a 1,000-pound festive sweetener to participate in environmental studies vital to expediting planning for its controversial 16 billion-pound third runway. The owners of houses and farmland on which the new landing strip is due to be built will qualify for the payment in return for agreeing to a handful of visits over about two years, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said. The surveys are required to establish the site’s wildlife value. “Over the next 10 days we’ll be knocking on doors,” he said. “People will hopefully say that if you’re going to come to me before Christmas and give me a thousand pounds to do nothing, I’d really like to know about it.” Heathrow must sign up a proportion of affected households for studies into the runway’s likely impact on populations of creatures including bats, badgers and newts as it sets out on the development-consent process, Holland-Kaye said. Agricultural land and rivers must also be surveyed. While mitigation measures such as the re-creation of habitats are usually acceptable, even major construction projects can suffer severe delays. The new landing strip will allow Heathrow to handle 135m passengers annually, up from about 75m this year. Many local people oppose the plan because of the impact of extra aircraft noise and pollution, while residents of villages set to be swallowed up by the enlarged airport have staged protests backed by environmental groups and celebrity campaigners.<br/>