End Heathrow Immigration Detention (EHID) campaign has warned that anyone against the expansion of Heathrow Airport, against the development of a new immigration detention centre at the airport, against the loss of local green space, needs to respond as soon as possible to the Hounslow Local Plan Consultation (deadline: midnight on 24^th September).

End Heathrow Immigration Detention (EHID) have responded to the consultation. They encourage you to respond too – together our voices are stronger, and the responses we submit will be worth more. EHID have put together a briefing document to try to simplify the process and offer some suggestions for what might be relevant to a range of submissions based on the type of objections that can be raised in a local plan consultation, from the work already done.

The deadline is fast approaching, and so we ask that you consider sharing this amongst your groups and networks, asking people to take 15 minutes for this important contribution, to submit their responses to the plans (respond to the consultation here).

Some key areas which you might find relevant are listed below, and more detail on how to respond can be found attached to this email.

While the Amazon is burning and ice caps are melting at an unprecedented rate, Heathrow Airport Limited’s plans to continue with a business as usual approach to airport expansion is ludicrous and dangerous. Of course, this is the underpinning factor to opposing any expansion of Heathrow; however, there are a number of other objections which are also very important.  

End Heathrow Immigration Detention have submitted responses based on the proposed change in use of land in the local Hounslow area, which is currently a well-used and much-loved green space, in a place which already suffers damaging air pollution from the airport. The green space provides much needed air quality improvement, and under the proposed plans, this space will be tarmacked and removed from protected green belt land status.

Members of the local community know only too well the devastating blight that the threat of expansion has caused for decades in the local area, and we oppose the expansion because of this too.

EHID are also objecting on the grounds in the proposal to construct an enormous new Immigration Removal Centre in the Hounslow area. The plans will enmesh Heathrow Airport Ltd within the UK government’s brutal and inhumane Hostile Environment policies as they will require existing detention centres Colnbrook and Harmondsworth to be relocated at a huge new centre at Faggs Lane in Hounslow.

These are just a few key reasons that Heathrow’s expansion plans must not proceed, and we must use every trick in the book to make sure they don’t!

Please, spread the word about how we can contribute via the official channels, and help other people to have their voices heard in the local plan by sharing the information below with your communities of friends, families, colleagues and groups.

Remember, the deadline is midnight on 24^th September so don’t delay! Why not take a moment with a cup of tea to do it right away? 

Together we can win this.

In solidarity,

End Heathrow Immigration Detention