Environmental Group Is Protesting Plans For Third Runway

As a group of environmental activists plan a protest of a third runway at Heathrow Airport using drones on Friday, police say they will work to preemptively stop the planned disruption of flights at the airport.

Two people associated with the group Heathrow Pause, a splinter group of a larger organization called Extinction Rebellion, planned to fly consumer drones within the Heathrow Exclusion Zone Friday. The issued a news release saying they met with police to discuss their plans, and know they risk imprisonment for their actions. Heathrow Pause describes itself as an unaffiliated group of concerned people who feel that this disruptive action is necessary to get the Government to act on the Climate and Ecological Emergency with the urgency it deserves. They’re also doing so to highlight the incompatibility of Heathrow Airport’s expansion with the Government’s own legally binding commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

The U.K. newspaper The Guardian reports that Metropolitan police deputy assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor said protesters taking part in the action “can expect to be arrested” and police would be looking at “all the powers and options and tactics available to us to prevent disruption."

“We have got tactics in place to detect and identify drone usage. I’m confident that we have got a plan in place that will prevent the activity they are proposing,” he said.

(Image from file)

FMI: Source report
heathrowpause.org