Germaine Greer and Jamie Oliver Square Up Over Stansted AirportExpansion

Germaine Greer and Jamie Oliver Square Up Over Airport Expansion
Independent, UK

07 December 2003

It could turn out to be one of the strangest conservation duels ever fought on 
English soil - a bitter tug-of-Tarmac between two of Britain's most instantly 
recognisable figures.

Germaine Greer has pitted herself against a powerful protest lobby led by Jamie 
Oliver over the future of thousands of acres of unspoilt Essex countryside 
under threat from plans to build an extra runway at Stansted airport. In one 
corner, the blokeish young multi-millionaire celebrity chef and lately champion 
of the aesthetics of beautiful villages and landscape. In the other, the chief 
cheerleader of the feminist cause and lately champion of the aesthetics of 
beautiful young men. Jamie and Germaine, your flight may be about to land.

Next week the Department for Transport is expected to reveal its preferred 
site, or sites, for a dramatic expansion in airport capacity in the UK - the 
climax of 18 months of furious debate that has seen an A-to-Z of Britain's 
conservation groups line up against the hard-nosed strategists and money men of 
the global airline and airport industry, the Government and the Treasury.

At first, the Government assessed dozens of airports and green-field sites for 
expansion, but it is now believed that just two locations are under 
consideration: Stansted and Heathrow. At the former, 3,000 acres of countryside 
could be eaten up by development, with 196 planes taking off or landing every 
hour on up to three new runways. Dozens of historic buildings would vanish or 
be harmed by noise and pollution. An enlarged Stansted would be one of the 
biggest airports in the world.

Anti-expansion groups have burgeoned at many of the key sites "optioned" for 
possible development, but at Stansted the row over the threat to local 
villages, landscape and wildlife has taken on a life of its own, not least 
through the tapping of a rich seam of famous figures - including Terry Waite 
and the legendary libel lawyer Peter Carter-Ruck - who live near the airport 
and who are appalled at the prospect of it becoming "the new Heathrow". All, 
that is, apart from one.

Germaine Greer, who lives in an ancient farmhouse on the outer fringe of the 
area affected by an increase in jet noise should expansion go ahead, is all for 
growth. In a series of broadsides the Melbourne-born scourge of intellectual 
sloppiness rounded on local opponents to expansion. "The future of the 
South-east is suburbia," she has said. "The people who live in rural peace and 
blessedness in north Essex are not sturdy peasantry but professionals and 
business people who want to deny the commercial reality from which they make 
their living. Airports are the cities of the future."

She argues that what relative rural peace there once may have been in her 
corner of Essex has been lost to light aircraft and heavy traffic.

Carol Barbone, of Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE), a campaign group that last 
week harried Whitehall and the head office of the British Airports Authority 
with a 70-car motorcade, said: "Just about everyone apart from Germaine is 
against the plans."

Alan Dean, leader of Uttlesford district council and campaigner against 
expansion, visited Professor Greer at her home, hoping to help her see the 
error of her ways. He was instead granted one of the most severe doorstep 
lashings of his political life. "She took a robust position," he said. "She was 
all for another Heathrow."

But over at Clavering, a short drive from Professor Greer's house, swords are 
being sharpened in readiness for the next skirmish against the expanders and 
their supporters. Clavering is home to Jamie Oliver and his family. His mother, 
Sally, is a key anti-expansion campaigner. Both Mr Oliver and his wife, Jules, 
were born and grew up in the area, and now live in a £900,000 16th-century 
manor.

Last week, Mr Oliver told The Independent on Sunday he was disappointed by 
Professor Greer's stance on the airport. "I'm not sure how involved she is in 
the community," he said, "but everyone I know living around here is worried.

"I remember going on a march about Stansted expansion when I was about eight 
years old. It seems to me that governments just use time to get what they want 
in the end. I am against the destruction of swathes of countryside and the 
increase in noise and pollution." 
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