Campaigners Fighting Expansion to Swansea Airport Link Up withHeathrow Protesters

December 8, 2003

Campaigners Fighting Expansion to Swansea Airport Link Up with Heathrow 
Protesters 
icWales, UK

CAMPAIGNERS fighting the continued expansion of Swansea Airport have formed an 
unofficial alliance with protesters opposed to a new runway at Heathrow.

They both belong to the Aviation Environment Federation, an umbrella body for 
all air campaign groups in the UK.

But members of Sane - Swansea Airport No Expansion - have developed a close 
affinity with the Heathrow Airport opposition group and a representative 
travelled to South Wales at the weekend to offer advice on a special strategy 
meeting in Swansea.

The aim was to start preparing a local response to the Government White Paper 
on the future of the aviation industry, which is due to be published next 
Monday.

Flights from Swansea Airport, pictured above, have expanded following the 
involvement of Air Wales and its Swansea- based chairman Roy Thomas.

Although it has long been denied - even by Government Minister Peter Hain, the 
MP for Neath - that there are plans to fly in jumbo jets, Sane campaigners 
remain sceptical, pointing to the fact that the Fairwood Common airport was 
intended only as a World War II measure.

"Gower was the first designated area of outstanding natural beauty in Britain 
and yet we still have an airport stuck right in the middle of it," lecturer and 
Sane member Dr Rolf Jucker protested yesterday.
 
  
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