I live under the Heathrow flight path
Jean Bland

Interview by Ros Anderson
Saturday October 7, 2006
The Guardian

I've lived with my husband in our house near Richmond, south-west London, for 19 years. The area is pretty and so convenient, but we have friends who've said, "Love the house, love the area... but I'd never buy a house where you live." Very soon after we moved in, the noise seemed to get worse and worse. We suffer most in the early morning and late at night. The planes come in on two paths that alternate, so you're never quite sure when the noise is going to come again. You can't go to bed before 11pm and you're woken up around 4am. It goes from a harsh engine noise to silence, harsh engine noise to silence. And then you're wide awake and wondering when the next one is coming. I would think we get a plane every couple of minutes, with lighter aircraft in between.

We've now realised that the whole front of the house is just too noisy, so we don't use that part much, unless we have a house full of visitors. The noise is loud enough to interrupt conversation or phone calls. It's stressful, and I worry about the pollution. It comes into the house as dirt and dust, and you can smell it in the air.

I do forget about it when it's quiet. Then I try not to even think about planes. My sister, when she comes to stay, will sit in the garden saying, "There's another one going over. Oh look, there's another one going over..." and I have to say, "Please, Peggy, don't do that. I don't want to be reminded."

If we stop using the garden, which we love, I feel it would spoil part of our lives. And then they win. But when I'm sitting on the patio, looking at the planes, they look as if they're just over the chimney pot. When I see them coming over the rooftop and I see everything in such clear detail, I think, "If that dropped now, it would hit rows and rows of houses. It's an accident waiting to happen."

I've been a member of the campaign against Heathrow expansion, Hacan, for almost all the time we've been here. But I have so many other things going on in my life that I take a step back now. I can't let all this take over my life. I try not to think too much about the future. I think the tide is turning for us, but standing still is the best we can hope for. We've not even thought of moving. Our friends are here, we know all the neighbours. This is our piece of England, if you like. Where would we go? It hasn't changed how I feel about my home. We love this house.

Richmond residents are generally envied by other Londoners for their area's wide expanse of green open spaces and easy access to strolls along the Thames.

But there is a catch for many of the borough's 160,000 inhabitants - much of it lies under the flight path for nearby Heathrow airport. On a grey afternoon in Richmond many shoppers in the town centre were equally gloomy on learning the long-mooted Terminal five was now almost certain to become a reality.

Anne Burke, who has lived in a Richmond street directly under a flight path for 16 years, said residents already had enough to put up with. "The aircraft start at around 4.30am. It can be quite difficult especially in the summer when the windows are open. "The environmental pollution is bad enough already, we just don't need anymore," she said.

Another long-time Richmond resident, Rose Constantine, agreed, saying the expected approval of T5 was "ghastly news". "It's horrendous to think there will be more flights even though I understand we've already reached the capacity that was not expected until 2014."

But Toby Jay from nearby Ham was more concerned about the impact of a new terminal on traffic levels. "I'm not particularly bothered by the idea of more planes but I think it will have a very bad effect on traffic congestion," he said.

Jack Clark is 95 and has lived in Sipson, Middlesex for 80 years. In all that time, he has fallen out with just one neighbour - BAA. Today, he faces the prospect of seeing his home and his village razed if plans for a third runway at Heathrow go ahead.

"I don't think it worries some people - moving - but it worries me. I don't think I'd be happy anywhere else," he says. "This is all I know." Sipson is where Jack met his wife of 67 years, Daisy May. Nearby is where his "old sweetheart" is now buried. Even the site her grave could be churned up and concreted over if the British Airports Authority (BAA), owned by Spanish firm Ferrovial, gets its way.

"I would hate to see them interfere with that. I would be very disappointed if I couldn't go and see my old girl," he says.

Jack could also lose his biggest passion - his racing pigeons - which he keeps in his garden and which have won him and son Robin numerous prizes. "My lad will be shattered, but we couldn't keep them. He lives in a caravan and I'll be put in a flat. It'll be sad to give them up, but we'll have to."

For 39 years, Jack worked on a farm, Wild and Robbins, right next door to Heathrow. When that closed he tried to get work at the airport, but was told - at 55 - that he was too old. "There was no airport to speak of when I was a lad. There were just little twin engine aircraft that came from America. They were like toy planes, not like Heathrow's got now."

"I honestly think it's quite big enough. If they ran it better, got the efficiency right, they wouldn't need to build. People like me wouldn't need to move."

Despite its proximity to London and the world's busiest airport, Sipson still bears the hallmarks of a traditional village. There really is a community and there really are successive generations of families living side by side. As proof, Jack's 35-year-old granddaughter Jackie is the village hairdresser. But unlike most hairdressers, Jackie doesn't have to make small-talk about the weather. "There's only one topic of conversation in this village," she says. "It's always there, hanging over us. Everyone talks about it when they come in, even our MP John McDonnell. After all, he'll have no constituency left." Unlike some, Jackie has refused to let the threat of development rule her life and, in fact, she only opened her shop this year. "You can't put your life on hold. I'd wanted to do it for so long and everyone in the village wanted me to, so I just decided to get on with it."

Jackie has no idea what compensation she will get if her business is forced to close, but in the meantime she fears the village she was born in and loves dearly could be ruined. "People haven't been able to sell because of the blight on prices, so they've moved away and got tenants in," she says. "Unfortunately, and I know it sounds snobbish, but it's lowered the tone. This place means a lot to us, but these people are only here for a short time and they don't care about it as much as we do. Crime has gone up too. We've had burglaries and assaults and old people don't feel as safe as they used to."

One of Jackie's customers Joan Willoughby agrees: "The atmosphere of the place has changed, particularly in the last year or two. And some people have given up the fight because their hands are tied. On the one hand, they're fighting against the corporation that's trying to take their homes, but at the same time they work for the airport so they can only say so much against their employer." Joan, 57, has lived in Sipson for 30 years and her husband Alan was born there. She feels the prospect of being moved has left people deeply unsettled. "People were born here and they expected to get married here, raise kids here, die here," she says. "Now all of that's changed and people don't know what to do. They just want answers. They want to know for certain what's going happen."

Just down the road lives Lynne Davis who has "No Third Runway" posters plastered all over her garden. Lynne, 59, is a self-confessed Heathrow "militant", but it is clear the fight has taken its toll on her. "I'm depressed, I don't sleep. It's like a time-bomb and you don't know when it's going to explode," she says. "BAA stand to make millions, billions even, from our misery." Lynne has lived in her house for 38 years. Throughout that time her sister Lesley has lived next door. Both fear there is little chance of them finding somewhere together if they are forced out. "We don't want to go, this is our home," Lynne says. "We stand to lose so much. Our friends are here, we all know each other, we help each other. It's a proper village and we're all tied to it. You have to be young to settle somewhere new and so many of the people here are elderly. I'm afraid of what the upheaval of moving could do."

Jim Payne, 45, and his wife Maxine, 42, have lived in Sipson for 22 years. Three years ago they almost threw in the towel and tried to move, but the estimated value of their house dropped by £60,000 in three weeks, so instead they decided to stay and fight. Jim, 45, says: "I'm extremely bitter. How can a government give human rights to murderers and terrorists, but give a foreign company Ferrovial the right to evict British citizens from their homes? They're not even offering us like for like - a new life in another village. They're just going to stick us on some estate with no community. It's criminal."

But with all this heartache, can Sipson really still be somewhere anyone would want to stay? For these residents at least, the answer is "Yes" - but with a caveat. Mother-of-two Maxine says: "It is still good here sometimes, but it's not what it was. BAA have spoiled the quality of life for whatever time we have left here."